LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA, 


r\ 


GIFT    OF 


- 


A  Plot  Against 
The  People 


An  Attempt  to  Pervert  the 
Pure  Food  Law 


R  y 


A  Plot  Against  the  People 

A  history  of  the  audacious  attempt  by 
Certain  Kentucky  "Straight  Whisky"  Interests 

to  pervert  the 

Pure  Food  Law 

in  order  to  create  a  monopoly  for  their 

Fusel  Oil  Whiskies 

and  to  outlaw  all 

Refined  Whiskies 


With  an  account  of 
the  suddenly-adopted  and  preposterous  theories  of 

Dr.  Harvey  W.  Wiley 

Chief  Government  Chemist 

His  complete,  but  wholly  unexplained,  abandonment  of  views 
long  previously  professed  and  promulgated 
and  his  arrogant  attitude  as 
Chief  Food  Official 


Of  great  interest  to  all  who  have  the  success  of  the  Pure  Food 

Movement  at  heart,  regardless  of  the  Whisky 

question  altogether 


1  'HI  fed  '    E'DfTIoV    ' 


Issued  by 

Hiram  Walker  &  Sons,  Limited 

Wafkerville,  Ontario,  Canada 

London  New  York  Chicago  Detroit 

Winnipeg  Victoria  Mexico  City 


Edited  by  WILLIAM  ROBINS 


To  the  American  patrons  of 

"Canadian  Club"  Whisky 

whose  approval  long  ago  made  it  one  of  the  most  popular 
brands  in  the  United  States,  in  spite  of  an  always  very  heavily 
adverse  tariff;  and  who  have  continued  so  loyal  to  it  dur- 
ing the  past  four  years,  in  the  face  of  the  grave  suspicion 
cast  upon  *  it  by  its  extraordinary  and  wholly  unwarranted 
condemnation  by  Doctor  Wiley,  which  has  been  made  the 
most  of  by  envious  and  conscienceless  competitors 

we  inscribe  this  story 
of  bitter  fight  and  complete  victory 

in  token  of  our  gratitude,  and  with  the  assurance  of  our  un- 
alterable determination  always  to  maintain  the  high  quality  of 
our  brand,  and  to  defend  its  reputation,  at  any  cost,  against 
all  assailants. 


.24 


GENERAL  INDEX 

PAGE 
PREFACE 3 

INTRODUCTION  ......  5 

CHAPTER  I.     Synopsis  of  the  Controversy         ...  9 

CHAPTER  II.     False    Pretensions    of   the    Kentucky    "Straight 

Whisky"  Group          .  .  .  .  .  .  14 

CHAPTER  III.     Doctor  Wiley  versus  Doctor  Wiley      .  .  18 

CHAPTER  IV.     Doctor  Wiley— "The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast 

Table"  .......  24 

CHAPTER  V.     Doctor  Wiley  is  "Tried  and  Found  Wanting"  6 

CHAPTER  VI.     President  Taft's  Decision  .  .  .  31 

CHAPTER  VII.  Attorney-General  Wickersham  Sustains  the 
Interpretation  of  the  Law  which  We  Submitted  to  Doctor 
Wiley  Four  Years  Before  .....  34 

CHAPTER  VIII.     The  Attempt  to  Oust '  'Canadian  Club  Whisky' ' 

from  the  United  States  .  .  .  .  .  36 

APPENDIX 

CHAPTER  IX.     The  Language  of  Distilling        .  .  .41 

CHAPTER  X.  The  Pure  Food  Law— Its  Objects  and  Require- 
ments .......  44 

CHAPTER  XL     Congressional  Debate  on  Whisky  in   1880         .  46 

CHAPTER  XII.     Doctor   Wiley  as    a    Witness    at  the    Official 

Inquiry  .......  51 

CHAPTER  XIII.  Doctor  Wiley's  Chemist  Disciples  as  Wit- 
nesses .......  78 

C  H  APTER  XIV.     The  Inconstant  Whisky  '  'Standards' '  of  Doctor 

Wiley  and  the  Chemists  Who  Followed  His  Lead    .  .  97 

CHAPTER  XV.     Eminent  Chemists  Differ  from  Doctor  Wiley    .  102 

CHAPTER  XVI.      "Leslie's  Weekly"    on   Doctor  Wiley  as  an 

"Expert"  Witness      ....  113 


APPRECIATION  BY  DOCTOR  WILEY 

Washington,   February   10,   1911 
Hiram  Walker  &  Sons,  Limited 

Walkerville,  Canada 
Gentlemen : 

I  acknowledge  with  thanks  the  receipt  of  the  very  interesting  publi- 
cation entitled  "A  PLOT  AGAINST  THE  PEOPLE."  I  may  say  frankly  that  I 
find  it  very  amusing,  and  with  equal  frankness  that  the  "plot  against  the  people" 
is  not  that  headed  by  Dr.  Wiley.  1  consider  that  a  work  of  this  kind  will  do 
much  to  commend  me  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  for  this  reason  1 
thank  you  very  kindly  for  your  effort  in  my  behalf.  Attacks  of  this  kind  only 
strengthen  a  man  who  stands  on  the  truth  as  a  platform,  and  whose  endeavors 
are,  in  so  far  as  he  knows,  in  the  interests  of  the  American  people. 

Respectfully, 

(Signed)  H.  W.  WILEY 


Walkerville,  February  13,  191 1 
Dr.  Harvey  W.  Wiley, 

Bureau  of  Chemistry,  Washington,  D.  C. 
Dear  Sir: 

We  are  truly  delighted  to  learn  from  yours  of  the  10th  that  you  like 
our  pamphlet  and  expect  its  circulation  to  commend  you  to  the  people  of  the 
United  States.  That  being  the  case,  you  will,  of  course,  be  glad  to  aid  us  in 
giving  it  the  widest  possible  distribution:  we,  therefore,  invite  you  to  send  us  ex- 
tensive lists  of  names  and  addresses.  The  pamphlet  is  in  very  active  demand, 
but  the  field  is  large,  and  while  we  are  about  it  we  wish  you  to  get  al!  the  credit 
to  which  you  are  entitled;  and  we  do  not  mind  the  expense,  considerable  though 
it  is. 

It  is  true  that  the  numerous  letters  we  have  received  from  readers  of 
the  book  do  not  altogether  bear  out  your  expectations:  they  indicate  that  the 
average  man  has  intelligence  enough  to  judge  for  himself  what  the  facts  of  the 
Whisky  Controversy  show.  We  have  never  agreed  with  those  who  say  that  the 
public  are  "mostly  fools,"  but  that  has  seemed  to  us  to  be  your  estimate  of  them 
for  a  very  long  time. 

Awaiting  your  hearty  co-operation  as  suggested,  we  are, 

Yours  truly, 

(Signed)  HIRAM  WALKER  &  SONS,  Limited 
By  William  Robins,  Director 


Preface 

We  hope  no  one  will  be  deterred  from  turning  these  pages  be- 
cause of  their  number.  The  subject  is  a  very  large  and  important 
one.  The  numerous  and  varied  questions  suggested  by  the  appli- 
cants for  this  pamphlet,  prove  the  need  and  desire  for  much  informa- 
tion. 

Those,  however,  who  wish  merely  a  brief  account  of  the  facts  will 
find  them  in  the  first  thirteen  pages. 

Special  information  is  clearly  desirable  for  the  vast  number  of 
people  who  lack  even  rudimentary  knowledge  of  the  Trade  terms 
and  customs  involved  in  the  controversy  of  which  this  is  a  history. 

Moreover,  many  of  the  facts,  unless  supported,  might  well  be 
received  with  incredulity: — Dr.  Wiley's  astounding  change  of  posi- 
tion; his  fantastic  propositions;  his  amazing  inconsistencies;  his  want 
of  knowledge ;  his  contempt  for  established  facts : — the  self-sufficiency 
and  ignorance  of  the  "scientific"  witnesses  who  supported  Dr.  Wiley's 
new-born  theories;  their  contradiction  of  him,  of  each  other,  and  of 
themselves: — the  impudent  and  dishonest  claims  advanced  by  these 
Kentucky  "Straight  Whisky"  men;  their  base  return  for  the  mag- 
nanimous help  they  received  from  the  "Refined  Whisky"  interests  in 
1880.  (See  Chapter  XI— remarks  of  Mr.  Willis.) 

Consequently,  we  quote  somewhat  extensively,  though  much  more 
sparingly  than  we  wish  space  would  permit,  from  the  Official  Report 
of  the  Enquiry  conducted  by  Solicitor-General  Bowers  by  order  of 
President  Taft. 

The  Appendix,  therefore,  is  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  desire 
enlightenment  on  technical  questions,  or  to  judge  for  themselves 
whether  our  criticism  of  Dr.  Wiley  and  others  is  warranted  by  the 
evidence. 

We  particularly  draw  attention  to  Chapters  XII  and  XIII, 
devoted  to  the  testimony  of  Dr.  Wiley  and  other  chemists.  They 


show  more  forcibly  than  anything  we  could  say  how  unwise  the  pub- 
lic will  be  if  they  blindly  follow  such  men  in  the  making  and  admin- 
istering of  Pure  Food  Laws. 

Our  merely  personal  interests  do  not  require  the  exposure  of  all 
of  Doctor  Wiley's  many  vagaries  on  the  question  of  WHISKY  ;  but  we 
feel  that  the  public  should  know  the  full  extent  of  his  amazing  absurd- 
ities and  self-contradictions  in  this  connection. 

Moreover,  we  are  very  glad  that  the  record  of  our  own  triumph 
should  be  equally  the  vindication  of  all  REFINED  WHISKIES. 


Introduction 

The  WHISKY  WAR  meant  far  more  to  the  people  of  the  United 
States  than  they  have  ever  realized.  It  was  a  question  of  whether 
there  should  be  a  monopoly  more  complete  than  any  now  existing. 

In  the  House  of  Representatives,  June  23,  1906,  discussing  a 
proposed  amendment  to  the  PURE  FOOD  LAW,  Mr.  Sherley,  son  of  a 
prominent,  old-time  Kentucky  distiller,  said : 

"There  has  been  a  persistent  attempt  on  the  part  of 
"certain  members  in  the  Whisky  Trade  to  use  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States  to  legislate  them  into  pros- 
perity and  their  competitors  out  of  prosperity — to  make 
"legal  their  particular  method  of  manufacture,  and  to 
"make  illegal  other  particular  methods  of  manufacture. 
«  *  *  *  'pjjg  gentleman  would  have  Congress  legis- 
late the  exclusive  use  of  the  word  WHISKY  to  a  process 
"that  has  not  been  in  existence  much  more  than  fifty  years, 
"and  it  would  put  out  of  existence  and  deny  the  use  of  the 
"word  WHISKY  to  the  makers  of  Whisky  by  processes  that 
"have  existed  over  one  hundred  and  fifty  years." 

With  an  entirely  different  story  and  object,  the  Kentucky  "Straight 
Whisky"  interests  were  before  Congress  in  1880.  Then,  in  the  clearest 
possible  terms,  they  acknowledged  the  "Refined  Whisky,"  and,  solely 
upon  the  ground  that  it  was  WHISKY,  they  sought  and  obtained  con- 
cessions for  their  own  product,  which  they  declared  to  be  foul  with 
Fusel  Oil,  and  not  WHISKY  in  the  commercial  sense  until  the  Fusel 
Oil  had  been  eliminated  by  age — as  they  then  supposed  it  was,  but 
now  know  it  was  not.  (See  the  Congressional  debate — Chapter  XL) 

Nearly  thirty  years  later,  there  was  sprung  upon  the  country  the 
diametrically  opposite  doctrine  that  WHISKY  must  contain  all  the 
"congeners" — a  name  invented  by  Dr.  Wiley  for  the  impurities  al- 
ways previously  called  "Fusel  Oil."  The  public,  of  course,  failed  to 
recognize  their  old  and  avoided  acquaintance,  FUSEL  OIL,  under  its 
new  and  attractive  name:  and,  as  a  consequence,  they  failed  also  to 
grasp  the  real  issue  of  the  controversy. 

5 


At  the  Investigation  before  Solicitor-General  Bowers,  in  April, 
1969,  Mr.  John  M.  Atherton,  himself  one  of  the  best  known  old- 
time  Kentucky  distillers,  who  testified  against  his  neighbors  in  the  in- 
terests of  truth,  said : 

"I  have  had  a  feeling  that  under  previous  rulings  an 
"immense  injustice  has  been  done  to  an  immense  branch 
"of  the  business  in  the  United  States,  without  any  possi- 
ble good  to  result  from  it,  giving  old  words  new  nyan- 
"ings,  and  revolutionizing  a  business  that  men  had  con- 
ducted under  the  law  ever  since  the  Internal  Revenue 
"Laws  were  established.  I  have  no  other  reason  for  being 
"here." 

In  order  to  justify  this  controversy  and  Dr.  Wiley's  part  therein, 
the  people  have  been  persistently  and  most  falsely  told  that  the  Whisky 
Trade  was  a  national  scandal:  that  nine-tenths  or  more  of  all  the 
Whisky  sold  in  the  country  was  "faked"  and  unwholesome.  What 
brought  forth  Mr.  Sherley's  remarks,  above-quoted,  was  the  ridiculous 
assertion  that  during  the  preceding  year  more  than  105,000,000  gal- 
lons of  imitation  whisky,  and  only  about  2,000,000  gallons  of  genuine 
whisky,  were  sold  in  the  United  States. 

In  his  report  to  Congress,  the  Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Judges 
on  Whisky  at  The  World's  Columbian  Exposition,  1893,  said: 
"No  other  department  of  industry  supplying  public  wants 
"in  the  line  of  food  and  drink,  wearing  apparel,  or  for 
"any  other  purpose,  can  show  a  better  record  for  purity 
"and  genuineness  of  material  in  use." 

At  the  enquiry  ordered  by  President  Taft,  herein  referred  to,  the 
frauds  testified  to  consisted  wholly  in  misrepresentation  as  to  the  age 
or  variety  of  the  article — practices  reprehensible  enough,  but  in  no 
sense  justifying  the  accusations  made,  nor  shown  or  supposed  to  be 
more  general  in  the  Whisky  Trade  than  in  others.  And  they  would 
have  been  in  no  way  corrected  by  the  theories  Dr.  Wiley  contended 
for. 

The  public  have  also  been  grossly  misled  by  the  deliberate  use  of 
purely  technical  names,  in  terms  designed  to  create  false  impressions: 
for  example,  the  statement  that  REFINED  WHISKIES  contain  "Neutral 
Spirit" — the  fact  being  that  all  Whiskies  contain  Spirit,  the  purest 
variety  of  which  is  "Neutral  Spirit;"  the  statement  that  "Neutral 
Spirit"  is  a  poison — the  truth  being  that  every  Alcoholic  Liquor 

6 


and  many  foods  are  poisons  in  the  scientific  sense.     (See  Chapter  IX: 
also,  Chapter  XII — questions  69  to  75.) 

Immense  mischief  has  been  done  by  the  impression,  (cultivated  by 
men  who  draw  official  salaries),  that  Chemistry  is  the  one  and  infalli- 
ble test  of  Food  Products. 

"What  is  WHISKY?"  is  no  more  a  question  for  Chemists  than  for 
Clairvoyants.  Dr.  Wiley  and  his  Chemists  have  been  compelled  to 
admit  that  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  chemically  between 
WHISKY,  BRANDY  and  RUM.  They  confess  that  the  only  tests  are  taste 
and  smell.  They  acknowledge  their  own  inability  to  apply  these  tests 
with  any  confidence.  (See  Chapters  XII  and  XIII.) 

They  admitted,  further,  that  by  chemical  test  Butter  cannot  be 
distinguished  from  Oleomargarine,  or  a  peach  from  a  pear — which 
proves  that  Whisky  is  not  the  only  food  which  chemists  are  not  spe- 
cially qualified  to  pass  judgment  on. 

Nevertheless,  the  WHISKY  WAR,  with  its  enormous  loss  and  ex- 
pense, could  never  have  existed  but  for  the  pretensions  of  Official 
Chemists  to  be  the  sole  judges  of  what  is  and  what  is  not  WHISKY; 
and  the  only  one  of  them  whe  had  influence  enough  to  create  a  dis- 
turbance was  Dr.  H.  W.  Wiley,  Chief  Government  Chemist. 

Since  Dr.  Wiley  was  overruled  by  President  Taft's  decision, 
great  efforts  have  been  made  to  mislead  the  public  as  to  the  merits  and 
consequences  of  that  decision,  which,  without  an  atom  of  truth,  is 
alleged  to  be  destructive  of  the  PURE  FOOD  LAW.  The  fact  is  that  the 
greatest  menace  to  the  PURE  FOOD  LAW  has  been  Dr.  Wiley's  grotesque 
interpretation  of  it. 

This  costly  controversy  was  purely  manufactured  and  void  of  any 
possible  public  good.  Reduced  to  simplicity,  the  question  was  solely 
whether  or  not  the  public  taste  should  be  officially  guided — whether 
consumers  should  or  should  not  continue  to  select  their  Whiskies  as 
they  select  other  things.  This  great  agitation  narrowed  itself  down 
into  nothing  more  than  a  matter  of  taste  and  odor. 

It  was  conclusively  proved  that  from  its  earliest  history  to  the 
present  time  WTiisky  has  been  flavored  and  colored  in  many  different 

ways. 

Personally,  we  have  never  used  "added  flavoring"  of  any  kind, 
by  which  is  meant  flavorings  other  than  those  inherent  in  the  spirit,  or 
acquired  from  the  cask;  but  we  have  always  maintained  that,  (pro- 


vided  the  materials  are  harmless  and  warranted  by  the  name  under 
which  the  product  is  sold),  manufacturers  should  be  free  to  employ 
such  methods  as  they  deem  best  to  meet  the  various  and  variable  tastes 
of  consumers. 

With  Whisky,  as  with  many  other  foods,  the  color  means  nothing 
more  than  time-honored  custom.1  All  the  coloring  agents  are  perfectly 
harmless :  and  they  are  all  alike  artificial,  because  Whisky  is  naturally 
colorless. 

It  is  not  our  purpose  to  discuss  the  relative  merits  of  the  many 
types  of  Whisky:  the  object  of  this  pamphlet  is  to  show  the  public  how 
narrowly  they  have  escaped  the  creation  of  a  huge  monopoly,  through  a 
perverted  use  of  the  Pure  Food  Law;  and  to  give  them  a  correct  con- 
ception of  Dr.  Wiley,  whom  they  have  been  taught  for  years  to  regard 
as  their  extremely  able,  zealous  and  trustworthy  protector  against  im- 
pure foods  detrimental  to  their  stomachs,  and  misbranded  foods  detri- 
mental to  their  pockets.  Leslie's  Weekly,  May  14,  1908,  said:  "It  is 
high  time  that  Dr.  Wiley  should  be  taken  at  his  real  rather  than  his 
face  value."  (See  Article  in  full— Chapter  XVL) 

While  this  is  the  story  of  WHISKY,  it  involves  the  whole  subject 
of  PURE  FOOD.  The  best  Laws  are  valueless  unless  properly  adminis- 
tered. As  long  as  the  people  put  their  confidence  in  idols,  they  will  be 
misled.  Everyone  who  has  the  welfare  of  the  Pure  Food  Movement 
at  heart  should  carefully  read  this  book,  and  pass  it  on  to  a  neighbor, 
or  get  his  neighbor  to  send  for  a  copy. 

In  concluding  these  introductory  remarks,  we  wish  to  state  that 
we  have  always  had  the  utmost  contempt  for  disparagement,  direct 
or  implied,  of  any  honorable  competitor  or  his  product. 

If,  for  the  moment,  this  declaration  should  appear  inconsistent 
with  our  expressions  regarding  the  personnel  and  product  of  the 
Kentucky  "Straight  Whisky"  interest  herein  referred  to,  we  venture 
the  confident  opinion  that  the  succeeding  pages  will  dispel  that  im- 
pression. 

Should  this  exposure  of  their  nefarious  scheme,  and  of  the  facts 
developed  by  the  investigation  which  it  necessitated,  prove  distaste- 
ful to  these  plotters,  they  will  have  only  themselves  to  blame  for  the 
fair  consequences  of  their  unprovoked  attack  upon  their  more  suc- 
cessful rivals. 


'See  President  Taft's  Decision — Chapter  VI. 


CHAPTER  I 
Synopsis  of  the  Controversy 

All  WHISKY  is  grain  spirit  made  potable  by  the  addition  of  water. 
When  the  percentage  of  alcohol  is  too  high  for  beverage  purposes,  the 
spirit  is  not  WHISKY,  but  is  known  to  manufacturers  by  some  name  ex- 
pressive of  its  alcoholic  strength;  or  its  degree  of  purity,  or  both.1 

The  purest  spirit  is  called  NEUTRAL  SPIRIT:  the  Whisky  made 
therefrom  is  technically  known  as  "Rectified"  or  "Redistilled"  Whis- 
ky, and  contains  practically  no  Fusel  Oil.2 

The  least  pure  spirit  is  called  HIGH  WINES:  the  Whisky  made 
therefrom  is  technically  known  as  "Straight"  Whisky,  and  contains 
a  considerable  amount  of  Fusel  Oil,  which  gives  the  Whisky  a  flavor 
and  odor  so  objectionable  that  it  is  never  sold  for  consumption  until 
it  has  been  aged  in  a  charred  barrel  for  some  years — usually  at  least 
four.3 

"Blended"  Whisky,  according  to  usage  in  the  United  States,  is  a 
mixture  of  "Straight"  Whisky,  (after  it  has  been  thus  aged,)  with 
new  "Rectified"  or  "Redistilled"  Whisky.4 


WHISKY  MADE  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES.  IT  IS  FULLY  DESCRIBED  IN 
THE  EARLY  PART  OF  CHAPTER  VIII.  IT  CONTAINS  PRACTICALLY  no 

Fusel  Oil:  THERE  is  no  added  flavoring:  IT  is  ALWAYS  aged  in 
oak  barrels  FOR  AT  LEAST  FIVE  YEARS  before  being  put  upon  the 
market. 

Doctor  Wiley  was  well  aware  what  the  term  "Blended  Whisky" 
meant  previous  to  the  passage  of  the  Pure  Food  Law.  (See  his  testi- 
mony— Chapter  XII — question  129.) 

Doctor  Wiley  wrote  a  letter,  after  the  passage  of  the  Pure  Food 
Law,  which  conclusively  proves  that,  at  that  time,  he  did  not  con- 
sider the  meaning  of  the  term  "Blended  Whisky"  in  any  way  changed 
by  that  law. 

From  time  immemorial,  the  public  have  regarded  Fusel  Oil  with 
the  utmost  aversion;  medical  men  have  carefully  avoided  it  when 


1,  2.  3,  4sec  also  Chapter  IX. 


prescribing   stimulants;    the    Pharmacopoeias    have    prohibited    more 
than  a  "trace"  of  it  in  Whisky,  Brandy,  and  other  ardent  spirits. 

For  many  years  previous  to  the  passage  of  the  Pure  Food  Law, 
(June  30,  1906),  Doctor  Wiley  was  in  full  accord  with  the 
popular  objection,  the  medical  attitude,  and  the  Pharmacopceial  re- 
quirements. Doctor  Wiley  officially  declared  that  Whisky  to  be 
good  for  consumption,  must  have  the  Fusel  Oil  eliminated. 

The  makers  of  "Straight  Whisky"  always  admitted,  until  quite 
recently,  that  their  product  was  utterly  unfit  for  use  while1  the  Fusel 
Oil  remained  in  it. 

While  the  Pure  Food  Law  was  before  Congress,  Doctor  Wiley 
assured  a  Committee  of  the  House  of  his  desire  that  all  kinds  of 
Whisky  should  be  placed  upon  an  equal  footing.  (Chapter  XII — 
questions  46,  47) 

Early  in  1907,  Doctor  Wiley  completely  reversed  all  these  prev- 
ious statements  about  Whisky.  He  insisted  that  nothing  was  Whisky 
which  did  not  contain  all  the  Fusel  Oil.  He  maintained  that  the  re- 
fined article,  (made  from  "Neutral  Spirit"),  never  had  been  Whis- 
ky. He  utterly  denied  that  "Blended  Whisky"  was  a  Whisky  at 
all.  He  declared  that  there  were  no  different  kinds  of  Whisky 
such  as  he  had  referred  to  when  before  the  Congressional  Committee, 
but  one  kind  of  Whisky  only — the  so-called  "Straight  Whisky,"  from 
which  Fusel  Oil  is  not  removed. 

As  stated,  "Straight  Whisky"  is  a  rank,  unpurified  spirit  aged 
in  charred  barrels.  Its  makers  and  Doctor  Wiley  were  of  the  opinion, 
until  a  very  few  years  ago,  that  age  did  eliminate  the  Fusel  Oil  from 
this  Whisky.  It  was  discovered  that  they  were  entirely  mistaken. 
The  extracts  from  the  charred  barrel  "drown"  the  smell  of  the  Fusel 
Oil,  but  nothing  more.1 

This  was,  naturally,  a  most  alarming  revelation  for  the  "Straight 
Whisky"  people.  They  well  knew  the  public  abhorrence  of  Fusel 
Oil.  They  knew  what  the  Chief  Government  Chemist  had  always 
said  about  it. 

But  it  so  happened  that,  in  place  of  their  product  being  irrepar- 
ably discredited  as  a  beverage  by  the  Chief  Government  Chemist's 
disapproval  of  Fusel  Oil,  his  change  of  mind  gave  these  Kentucky 
"Straight  Whisky"  people  visions  of  a  complete  monopoly  of  the 
Whisky  Trade  of  the  United  States:  for  the  logical  and  inevitable 

^ee  President  Taft's  Decision— Chapter  VI. 

10 


result  of  Dr.  Wiley's  new-born  doctrine  would  be  to  make  "Straight 
Whisky"  the  only  legal  Whisky :  and  they  set  about  to  accomplish  this. 

Doctor  Wiley,  though  challenged  to  do  so,  has  never  offered  any 
explanation  for  his  amazing  change  of  attitude. 

Addressing  the  Solicitor-General,  the  Hon.  Joseph  H.  Choate 
said  : 

"One  of  the  questions  I  want  Mr.  Carlisle  to  answer  is, 
"What  has  changed  Dr.  Wiley's  mind?  Why  was  it 
"that  in  1893  he  swore  by  all  that  was  great  and  good, 
"for  the  information  of  this  nation  and  all  other  nations, 
"that  these  were  all  Whisky,  and  now  he  takes  the  posi- 
tion that  he  does?" 
Mr.  Carlisle  answered : 

"I  think  he  is  the  one  who  ought  to  answer  that." 
Mr.  Carlisle  was  right.    Dr.  Wiley  ought  to  have  answered  long 
before.    As  a  public  servant  he  should  not  have  waited  to  be  asked: 
he  should  have  volunteered  a  full  explanation  of  so  extraordinary  a 
change  of  mind  the  moment  it  took  place. 
But  Dr.  Wiley  has  not  explained  yet. 

Doctor  Wiley,  as  Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Food  and  Drug  In- 
spection, promptly  proceeded  to  enforce  his  new-fangled  theories. 
Without  waiting  for  a  judicial  interpretation  of  the  Pure  Food  Law, 
and  in  spite  of  petitions  and  protests,  Doctor  Wiley  caused  seizures 
to  be  made  of  American  "Refined"  Whiskies,  and  had  foreign  "Re- 
fined" Whiskies,  including  "Canadian  Club,"  stopped  at  the  ports  of 
entry. 

In  May,  1908,  an  English  ROYAL  COMMISSION,  composed  of  a 
number  of  eminent  men,  after  a  searching  investigation  of  the  sub- 
ject, defined  WHISKY  in  terms  absolutely  contrary  to  Doctor  Wiley's 
contentions.  But  the  definition  of  the  English  name  of  an  article  of 
English  origin,  by  a  body  of  learned  Englishmen,  made  no  impression 
on  the  learned  Doctor  Wiley,  who  calmly  pursued  his  autocratic  way. 

In  April,  1909,  President  Taft  was  appealed  to.  He  ordered  an 
enquiry  by  Solicitor-General  Bowers,  which  at  once  followed.  The 
various  Whisky  interests  were  represented  by  counsel;  the  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture,  (of  which  Doctor  Wiley  is  an  employee),  was 
officially  and  impartially  represented  by  its  Solicitor.  Doctor  Wiley, 

ii 


however,  fought  independently  for  his  newly-adopted  theories;  and 
{he  Solicitor-General  very  wisely  allowed  him  such  ample  latitude 
that  he  could  not  possibly  plead  any  lack  of  opportunity.  (See 
Chapter  V.) 

The  Kentucky  "Straight  Whisky"  group  evidently  pinned  their 
faith  to  chemical  proofs,  for  the  witnesses  in  support  of  their  conten- 
tions were  almost  all  chemists  or  pharmacists.  It  is  hardly  possible 
that  flimsier  testimony  was  ever  offered.  It  was  worse  tfcan  weak — 
it  was  positively  puerile.  To  read  it,  is  to  rank  it  as  ridiculous.  ( See 
Chapters  XII  and  XIII). 

It  is  little  wonder  that  in  the  light  of  this  travesty  on  "expert" 
and  "scientific"  evidence,  the  counsel  for  the  Kentucky  "Straight 
Whisky"  people  dared  not  found  any  argument  upon  it.  He  could 
hardly  repudiate  it  openly;  but  he  fought  very  shy  of  it.  This  is 
what  he  said : 

"I  shall  not  discuss  the  chemical  question  myself.  All  the 
"bearing,  or  the  principal  bearing,  it  has  on  this  question 
"is  the  fact  that  the  composition  of  an  article  can  be  ascer- 
tained, and  the  quantity  of  these  so-called  'congeneric' 
"substances  can  be  ascertained.  Now,  as  to  what  the  ef- 
"fect  of  the  presence  of  these  substances  in  the  products 
"shall  have  is  another  question,  which  is  not  a  chemical 
"question,  I  suppose,  except  in  so  far  as  they  speak  of  it 
"giving  a  certain  distinctive  odor  itself  to  the  products." 
and 

"I  do  not  think  any  chemist  can  take  this  article  and  ascer- 
tain precisely  how  much  or  how  little  of  these  'congener- 
ic' substances  should  remain  in  it  in  order  to  constitute 


Inasmuch  as  the  whole  contention  of  Doctor  Wiley,  and  of  the 
Kentucky  people,  originally  was  that  chemists  could  tell  exactly  how 
much  or  how  little  of  the  "congeners,"  (always  called  FUSEL  OIL  until 
Doctor  Wiley  invented  this  euphemism),  there  should  be  to  constitute 
WHISKY,  Mr.  Carlisle's  admissions  were  an  abandonment  of  his  clients' 
basic  position. 

12 


President  Taft  decided  against  Doctor  Wiley  and  the  "Straight 
Whisky"  interests  on  every  point;  and,  as  the  President  said,  upon 
the  "overwhelming"  evidence.  (  See  Chapter  VI). 

This,  in  the  barest  outline  only,  is  the  story  of  the  Whisky  Con- 
troversy; which  was  not  merely  on  the  question,  "What  is  Whisky?", 
but  involved  the  infinitely  more  important  question — WHETHER  THE 

PURE   FOOD   LAW   SHOULD    BECOME   THE    MACHINERY    FOR   CREATING 
A  GOVERNMENT-MADE  AND  GOVERNMENT-SUPPORTED  MONOPOLY. 


CHAPTER  II 

False  Pretensions  of  the  Kentucky  "Straight 
Whisky "   Group 

( Certain  Kentucky  "Straight  Whisky"  people  sought  %to  secure  a 
monopoly  beside  which  the  most  execrated  Trust  in  the  world  would 
seem  benevolent. 

Even  the  largest  and  most  powerful  Trust  has  competitors;  and 
laws  exist  for  the  express  purpose  of  preventing  the  crushing  out 
of  competition. 

But  these  Kentucky  "Straight  Whisky"  men  tried  to  use  the  PURE 
FOOD  LAW  to  make  their  product  the  only  legal  Whisky  in  the 
United  States. 

To  this  end,  they  set  up  three  most  mendacious  contentions : — 

1.  That  the  only  real  Whisky  must  contain  all  the  Fusel 
Oil:  and  that  spirit  free  from  Fusel  Oil  had  never  been  regarded 
as  Whisky,  even  by  its  makers. 

The  Kentucky  "Straight  Whisky"  distillers  themselves  thorough- 
ly established  the  reverse  of  this  in  Congress  in  1880.  (See  Chapter 
XI). 

2.  That   the  color  of  "Straight   Whisky,"   derived   from 
charred  barrels,  was  a  true  indication  of  age. 

A  very  large  proportion  of  Kentucky  Whisky,  (estimated  at  50 
per  cent,  or  more),  has  for  years  been  colored  in  a  few  days. 

3.  That  the  coloring  of  Whisky  by  means  of  caramel  is  an 
imitation  of  charred  barrel  coloring. 

Caramel  was  used  a  hundred  years,  or  more,  before  charred  bar- 
rels; and  there  can  be  no  question  that  the  latter  were  adopted  to 
imitate  the  color  long  previously  obtained  from  caramel.  (See  Presi- 
dent Taft's  Decision— Chapter  VI). 

These  Kentucky  "Straight  Whisky"  distillers  did  not,  of  course, 
openly  announce  their  purpose.  Mr.  Sherley  had  thrown  the  light 

14 


upon  their  scheme  in  the  House  of  Representatives,1  but  they  kept  up 
their  affectation  of  deep  concern  for  the  welfare  of  the  public;  so 
they  had  the  insolence  to  charge  the  "Refined  Whisky"  interests  with 
deception  of  the  people:  they  said — "Consumers  always  expected  to 
get  Fusel  Oil,  and  you  have  taken  their  Fusel  Oil  away  from  them 
without  their  knowledge." 

Think  of  it!  Deception  charged  by  the  men  who  had  for  years 
assured  the  public  that  the  Fusel  Oil  was  removed  from  their  whisky, 
but  who,  since  learning  that  it  is  not  removed,  have  done  nothing 
whatever  to  undeceive  the  people! 

We  promise  these  gentlemen  that  we  will  do  our  best  hereafter 
to  repair  both  omissions,  if  it  was  an  omission  to  refrain  from  telling 
consumers  when  they  were  not  getting  Fusel  Oil:  and  we  only  hope 
that  these  Kentucky  distillers  will  follow  our  example. 

But  for  Dr.  Wiley's  abandonment  of  his  previous  views,  their 
scheme  would  have  been  stillborn;  their  impudent  and  dishonest 
claims  would  have  been  received  by  the  public  as  mere  "clap  trap" 
advertising.  Dr.  Wiley's  position  as  Chief  Administrator  of  the  PURE 
FOOD  LAW,  his  prestige  throughout  the  country  as  the  supposed  cham- 
pion of  Pure  Food,  and  the  action  he  took  in  pursuance  of  his  newly- 
adopted  theories,  made  the  attempt  possible  and,  at  first,  partially 
successful. 

We  much  regret  that  the  membership  of  this  group  of  distillers 
was  not  revealed :  but  its  spokesman  was  Mr.  Edmund  W.  Taylor, 
of  E.  H.  Taylor,  Jr.  &  Sons,  Frankfort,  proprietors  of  "OLD  TAY- 
LOR" whisky,  which,  it  is  fair  to  assume,  will  satisfy  the  require- 
ments of  consumers  who  may  desire  whisky  from  which  the  Fusel  Oil 
is  not  removed. 

While  not  a  lawyer,  and  although  these  distillers  were  represented 
by  counsel,  Mr.  Taylor  addressed  the  President  at  both  hearings,  and 
throughout  the  Official  Enquiry  examined  and  cross-examined  wit- 
nesses and  made  arguments.  The  opposing  interests  acted  wholly 
through  their  lawyers. 

To  the  keen  disappointment  of  the  other  side,  Mr.  Taylor  did 
not  offer  himself  as  a  witness;  but  we  give  an  interesting  colloquy  in 
which  he  took  part. 

1  See  page  5. 

15 


Addressing  the  President,  Mr.  Taylor  said:  All  we  are  asking 
for  is,  that  if  these  gentlemen  or  their  clients  are  making  a 
product  which  has  all  these  virtues  that  they  are  claiming  for 
it,  they  put  it  upon  the  market  so  as  to  give  the  consumer  a 
chance  to  select  it  in  preference  to  our  goods.1 

Hon.  Jos.  H.  Choate:  To  end  the  discussion,  would  you  be 
content  to  have  your  whisky  branded  "Straight"  whisky,  and 
blends  branded  "Blends,"  and  the  neutral  spiyts  whisky 
branded  "Refined?" 

Mr.  Taylor:  My  answer  would  be  that  I  have  not  the  power  of 
Congress.2  Congress  has  already  indicated  just  how  these 
shall  be  branded.8 

Mr.  Choate:    That  would  be  your  only  objection? 

Mr.  Taylor:  A  "blend"  is  the  mixing  of  like  substances,  and  a 
"compound"  is  a  mixing  of  unlike  substances,  and  an  "imita- 
tion" is  an  imitation  of  something.  That  would  apply  to 
food  as  well  as  to  drinks.4 

Mr.  Choate:    That  would  be  your  only  objection? 

Mr.  Taylor :    /  simply  want  the  law  enforced;  that  is  all.5 

The  same  single  eye  to  the  sanctity  of  the  law  was  expressed 
by  Doctor  Wiley:  though  one  captiously  inclined  might  suggest  some 
slight  disparity  between  protestation  and  performance,  in  view  of  the 
Doctor's  contempt  for  interpretations  of  the  law  by  lawyers,  recorded  in 
Chapter  VIII. 

Mr.  Hough :  Am  I  correct  in  thinking  that  you  do  not  think  the 
great  object  to  be  attained  by  pure-food  legislation  would  be 
accomplished  by  marking  those  so  that  the  public  could  under- 
stand that  one  was  one  kind  of  whisky  and  the  other  another 
kind  of  whisky? 

Doctor  Wiley:  That  is  all  I  claim;  that  one  should  be  marked 
"spurious,"  "imitation,"  or  "compound,"  AS  THE  LAW  RE- 
QUIRES IT  TO  BE.  (See  Chapter  XII — question  47.) 


iThe  whole  trouble  was  that  consumers  had  been  selecting  REFINED  WHISKY  in  preference  to  STRAIGHT 
WHISKY,  to  such  an  extent  that  Doctor  Wiley  estimated  the  latter  at  only  5%  of  the  consumption.  That  was 
the  whole  reason  for  this  controversy. 

2,  4, 5The  evasiveness  of  these  answers  is  characteristic  of  much  of  the  testimony  given  in  Chapters  XII  and 
XIII. 

Spresident  Taft,  who  has  something  of  a  reputation  as  a  lawyer,  did  not  agree  with  Mr.  Edmund  W.  Taylor, 
distiller,  who  so  kindly  explained  the  law  to  the  Hon.  Joseph  H.  Choate. 

16 


Lofty  insistence  upon  the  letter  of  the  law,  regardless  of  such  petty 
considerations  as  public  good  or  private  injury,  is  usually  indulged  in 
by  those  who  expect  to  escape  personal  inconvenience,  and  to  benefit  at 
the  expense  of  those  less  fortunate. 

Literature  furnishes  an  example;  of  which,  however,  we  cannot 
make  use  without  due  apologies  to  the  shade  of  the  Venetian:  for, 
after  all^he  demanded  but  his  legal  rights — he  had  his  bond.  Mr. 
Edmund  W.  Taylor  and  his  associates  had  only  their  amazing  assur- 
ance, and  their  trust  in  the  weight  of  Dr.  Wiley's  name. 

"The  pound  of  flesh,  which  I  demand  of  him, 
Is  dearly  bought;  'tis  mine  and  I  will  have  it. 
If  you  deny  me,  fie  upon  your  law! 
There  is  no  force  in  the  decrees  of  Venice. 


And  we  hazard  the  opinion  that  Mr.  Edmund  W.  Taylor  and  his 
clique  of  "Straight  Whisky"  distillers  will  be  painfully  reminded  of 
the  retribution  which  overtook  their  prototype,  when  the  people  learn 
that  the  Fusel  Oil  is  not  removed  from  their  whisky. 

They  wanted  no  trade  advantage — these  public-spirited  gentlemen ; 
they  said  so:  the  enforcement  of  the  law  was  their  sole  desire;  they 
said  so:  therefore,  any  suggestion  of  the  monopoly  which  their  interpre- 
tation of  the  law  would  inevitably  create  was  unwelcome  to  them, 
naturally. 

Mr.  Maxwell :  What  would  be  the  result  if  that  trade  designa- 
tion of  WHISKY  were  to  be  confined  now  to  so-called  "Straight 
Whisky?" 

Mr.  Carlisle:  /  object  to  that.  I  do  not  think  that  is  a  matter 
that  the  Solicitor-General  wants  to  consider. 


CHAPTER  III 
Doctor  Wiley  versus  Doctor  Wiley 

Dr.  Wiley's  abandonment  of  his  former  views  involved  him  in 
many  formidable  difficulties,  but  he  boldly  faced  them  all.  No  self- 
contradiction  appalled  him:  no  argument  to  meet  the  emergency  of 
the  moment  was  too  fantastic:  no  statement  was  too  absurd:  the 
modesty  which  is  usually  begotten  of  sudden  and  radical  changes 
of  doctrine  did  not  for  a  moment  deter  him  from  still  posing  as 
an  oracle:  the  fate  of  those  who  had  enormous  sums  of  money 
invested  in  what  he  had  for  years  called  the  only  GOOD  Whisky, 
and  now  said  was  not  Whisky  of  any  sort,  gave  him  no  concern. 

Before  the  Pure  Food  Law  was  passed,  Dr.  Wiley 
officially  described  Fusel  Oil  as  an  injurious  substance : 
he  officially  declared  that  it  must  be  removed  to  make 
Whisky  "good  for  consumption:"  he  officially  stated 
that  the  Fusel  Oil  should  not  exceed  one-quarter  of  one 
per  cent. 

After  the  Law  was  passed,  Dr.  Wiley  insisted  that 
none  of  the  Fusel  Oil  must  be  removed:  he  insisted  that 
the  removal  of  any  part  of  it  destroyed  the  Whisky:  he 
calmly  asserted  that  what  was  meant  was  that  the  smell 
of  Fusel  Oil  should  be  removed. 

When  did  a  smell  become  a  substance?  When  was  a  smell  a  thing 
that  could  be  weighed  or  measured?  How  much  of  a  smell  is  one- 
quarter  of  one  per  cent? 

Dr.  Wiley  told  the  Solicitor-General  that  most  con- 
sumers had  no  idea  as  to  what  FUSEL  OIL  was  or  where 
it  existed. 

But  when  a  member  of  the  Congressional  Com- 
mittee, in  1906,  said,  "I  have  always  understood  that 
FUSEL  OIL  was  a  terrible  thing,"  Dr.  Wiley  replied, 
"So  have  I.  I  was  going  to  say  that  I  was  brought 
"up  to  believe  that  FUSEL  OIL  was  a  veritable  bete  noir. 
"It  was  a  thing  you  ought  not  to  meet  in  the  dark,  at 
"least." 

18 


The  public  will,  we  think,  conclude  that  in  the  latter  case  the 
Doctor  spoke  the  truth. 

Before  the  Congressional  Committee  on  the  PURE 
FOOD  LAW,  Dr.  Wiley  fully  recognized  the  REFINED 
WHISKIES,  and  testified  to  their  excellent  quality.  He 
assured  the  Committee  of  his  sole  desire  that  the  differ- 
ent kinds  of  Whisky  should  be  placed  upon  an  equal 
footing. 

When  the  Law  had  been  passed,  he  insisted  that  there 
was  but  one  kind  of  Whisky — the  kind  made  by  these 
Kentucky  Fusel-Oil-Whisky  interests. 

Dr.  Wiley  said  before  the  Solicitor-General,  that 
REFINED  WHISKY  had  always  been  known,  even  in  the 
debates  in  Congress,  as  "spurious  or  imitation  Whisky." 

This  was  absolutely  untrue.  For  complete  refutation  from  the 
Congressional  Records,  see  Chapter  XI. 

Dr.  Wiley  formulated  certain  chemical  "Standards" 
for  Whisky,  for  the  consideration  of  the  Association  of 
Official  Chemists  and  Food  Officials,  (a  body  in  which 
he  was  for  a  time  apparently  the  guiding  spirit).  He 
did  not  attend  the  meeting  at  which  these  "Standards" 
were  adopted  without  change:  but  when  these  identical 
"Standards"  proved  embarrassing,  Dr.  Wiley  had  the 
assurance  to  say  that  he  would  have  voted  against  them 
if  present  at  the  meeting.  His  answers  when  questioned 
on  the  subject  before  the  Solicitor-General  are  so  amaz- 
ing that  we  quote  them  below. 

Mr.  Hough :    You  participated  in  the  adoption  of  the  Jamestown 

standards,  did  you? 

Dr.  Wiley:    No,  sir,  I  was  not  in  this  country. 
Mr.  Hough:    You  were  a  member  of  the  committee? 
Dr.  Wiley :    Yes,  but  I  was  absent. 

Mr.  Hough:     You  recommended  the  adoption,  did  you  not? 
Dr.  Wiley:     I  did  not. 
Mr.  Hough:    You  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  adoption  of  those 

standards  ? 

19 


%     Dr.  Wiley:    Nothing  whatever.    Had  I  been  there  I  should  have 
voted  against  it. 

Mr.  Hough:  The  standards  which  were  adopted  were  those 
which  were  originally  suggested  by  your  committee — BY 
YOU? 

Dr.  Wiley:  I  think  they  were,  yes,  sir;  but  that  original  sugges- 
tion was  never  meant  for  adoption.  It  was  merely  put  out  to 
invite  discussion. 

On  November  14,  1906,  (four  months  and  a  half  after 
the  passage  of  the  PURE  FOOD  LAW) ,  Dr.  Wiley  stated  in 
writing  his  opinion  that  a  mixture  of  "Straight  Whisky" 
and  "Neutral  Spirits"  should,  under  the  Law,  be  label- 
led as  a  "Blend."  And  he  called  the  mixture  WHISKY. 

He  subsequently  stated  that  "Neutral  Spirits"  is  AL- 
COHOL, and  maintained  that  to  add  a  single  drop  of  Al- 
cohol to  Whisky  was  adulteration  which  made  the  arti- 
cle no  longer  WHISKY. 

The  PURE  FOOD  LAW  distinctly  stipulates  that  only 
mixtures  of  "like  substances"  may  be  called  "Blends:" 
consequently,  Dr.  Wiley  regarded  "Straight  Whisky" 
and  "Neutral  Spirits"  as  "like  substances"  on  November 
14,  1906. 

A  few  weeks  later  he  maintained  that  they  were  not 
"like  substances." 

Dr.  Wiley  stated  before  a  Congressional  Committee 
in  1904,  that  Bottled-in-Bond  Whiskies,  (which  are  all 
"Straight  Whiskies"),  afforded  no  guarantee  of  purity, 
but  might,  on  the  contrary,  be  very  unwholesome. 

Before  the  Solicitor-General  in  1909,  he  was  forced 
to  admit  that  he  had  frequently  made  the  statement  that 
the  only  way  the  purchaser  could  be  sure  of  getting  pure 
Whisky  was  by  buying  Bottled-in-Bond  Whisky. 

In  February,  1906,  Dr.  Wiley  testified  before  a  Con- 
gressional Committee,  as  follows:  "Suppose  I  do  not 
"know  anything  about  Whisky,  practically,  as  I  do  not, 
"I  am  glad  to  say.  *  *  *  I  am  not  a  connoisseur. 
«*  *  *  My  opinion  would  not  be  worth  anything, 
"because  I  am  not  an  expert." 


20 


A  little  later,  he  had  a  much  better  opinion  of  him- 
self; for  before  the  Solicitor-General  he  stated  his 
qualifications  in  characteristically  modest  language, 
thus: 

Dr.   Wiley:  You  can  so  imitate  a  Whisky  that  even  the  elect 

would  be  deceived. 
Mr.  Hough:     Who  are  the  elect? 
Dr.  Wiley:    Well,  /  am  one  of  them. 

Mr.  Hough :    It  has  been  suggested  that  you  name  the  other. 
Dr.  Wiley:     President  Roosevelt. 

Dr.  Wiley  advanced  the  astounding  doctrine  that 
Whisky  is  a  natural  product,  although  its  manufacture 
involves  the  conversion  of  Barley  into  Malt,  of  Grain 
into  Meal,  of  Starch  into  Sugar,  of  Sugar  into  Alcohol; 
all  by  methods  invented  and  controlled  by  man.  His 
testimony  on  this  point,  which  is  a  wonderful  contribu- 
tion to  the  sum  of  human  knowledge,  and  too  good  to 
be  lost,  was  as  follows: 

"Mr.  Solicitor-General,  I  would  like  to  say  just  a  word 
"on  the  question  of  putting  Alcohol  in  Whisky.  *  *  * 
"I  take  it  that  Whisky  is  just  as  much  a  natural  product 
"as  Honey.  Nature  does  not  make  Honey.  The  bees 
"manufacture  Honey.  *  *  *  Honey  is  a  manufac- 
"tured  article  just  as  much  as  Whisky  is.  WTiisky  is 
"an  absolutely  natural  article,  made  by  nature  and  dis- 
"  tilled  by  man.  Honey  is  an  absolutely  natural  article, 
"made  by  nature  and  gathered  by  the  bee." 

Note  the  Doctor's  beautiful  consistency.  He  says  Nature  does 
not  make  honey,  and  then  he  says  honey  is  made  by  Nature.  He 
says  bees  gather  the  honey,  and  that  man  distils  the  whisky — not  that 
man  gathers  the  whisky.  And,  according  to  the  Doctor,  to  gather 
a  thing  already  made  is  to  manufacture  it,  and  to  distil  a  thing  is  not 
to  make  it.  We  will  leave  the  Doctor  to  fight  it  out  with  himself 
and  the  dictionary. 

At  the  investigation  by  the  Solicitor-General,  Dr. 
Wiley  declared  time  and  again  that  the  addition  of  a 
refined  grain  spirit  to  an  unrefined  grain  spirit  was  an 

21 


adulteration  of  the  latter  exactly  similar  to  the  addition 
of  Oleomargarine  to  Butter,  or  of  Cotton  Seed  Oil  to 
Olive  Oil. 

If  the  Doctor  is  correct,  the  addition  of  high-grade  Butter  to  low- 
grade  Butter  would  be  an  adulteration  of  the  latter  exactly  similar 
to  the  addition  of  Oleomargarine  to  Butter! 

Dr.  Wiley  said  before  the  Solicitor-General  that  the 
color  of  Whisky  kept  in  a  charred  barrel  "comes  by  long 
"age,  and  only  long  age." 

At  the  same  hearing  it  was  conclusively  proved  that 
a  very  large  proportion  of  the  Kentucky  "Straight 
Whisky,"  all  of  which  is  stored  in  charred  barrels,  is 
given  a  deeper  color  in  a  few  days  than  it  would  natural- 
ly get  in  several  years. 

And  Doctor  Wiley  had  the  hardihood  to  make  his  inaccurate 
statement  after  the  uncontradicted  evidence  to  the  contrary  had  been 
given,  by  witnesses  whom  he  personally  cross-examined.  To  call 
such  conduct  "sheer  recklessness"  seems  unnecessary  forbearance. 

Before  the  Congressional  Committee,  in  1906,  Dr. 
Wiley  said:  "I  went  to  Ireland,  and  I  found  that  Whis- 
"ky  was  made  there  exactly  as  it  is  in  this  country  in 
"Kentucky,  *  *  *  fit  4  pot  still." 

Before  the  Solicitor-General  he  had  to  admit  that 
when  he  made  the  above-quoted  statement  he  had  never 
been  in  a  Kentucky  distillery,  and  that  he  was  wrong 
about  the  pot  still. 

Dr.  Wiley  represented  to  the  Solicitor-General  that 
WHISKY  could  be  made  only  from  sound  grain,  but 
NEUTRAL  SPIRIT  could  be  made  from  rotten  grain;  and 
he  deliberately  implied  that  NEUTRAL  SPIRIT  was  so 
made. 

Just  one  witness  was  produced  to  say  that  on  just  one 
occasion  he  had  made  NEUTRAL  SPIRIT  from  unsound 
grain:  and  counsel  for  the  REFINED  WHISKY  interest 
made  the  same  witness  admit  that  he  had  also  known 
what  his  party  called  WHISKY  to  be  made  from  unsound 
grain. 


22 


The  statement  about  WHISKY  we  may  pass  over:  it  was  only  one 
of  Dr.  Wiley's  many  wild  assertions.  But  the  suggestion  regarding 
NEUTRAL  SPIRITS  was  contemptible.  Americans  who  remember  the 
Spanish- American  war  do  not  need  to  be  told  that  other  rotten  things 
besides  grain  may  enter  into  the  food  supply.  But  nobody  suggested 
that  tinned  beef  was  always  rotten,  or  that  all  tinned  beef  should  be 
outlawed  because  some  tinned  beef  was  rotten. 

Throughout  the  Investigation  by  the  Solicitor-Gen- 
eral, the  Department  of  Agriculture,  of  which  Dr. 
Wiley  is  an  official,  was  represented  by  its  Solicitor,  and 
declared  to  be  impartial,  as,  of  course,  it  should  be. 

Nevertheless,  Dr.  Wiley  took  a  most  active  part 
therein.  At  great  length  he  examined  and  re-examined 
the  witnesses  who  favored  his  position,  and  at  greater 
length  cross-examined  the  opposing  witnesses. 

At  the  close  of  the  case  he  made  an  address  to  the 
Solicitor-General,  and  attempted  to  alarm  him,  as  he 
had  already  attempted  to  alarm  the  country,  by  the 
utterly  unwarranted  assertion  that  the  whole  PURE  FOOD 
LAW  would  be  rendered  worthless  if  his  new  theories 
on  Whisky  were  rejected. 

Dr.  Wiley  so  eagerly  advocated  his  own  theories  that  he  was  not, 
and  could  not  be,  impartial  in  this  investigation,1  as  the  Department 
of  which  he  is  a  servant  was  declared  to  be,  and,  as  represented 
by  its  Solicitor,  certainly  was. 

He  should  have  been  impartial.  His  value  as  a  public  officer  de- 
pends on  his  impartiality. 

Surely  LESLIE'S  WEEKLY  is  right — "It  is  high  time  that  Dr.  Wiley 
"should  be  taken  at  his  real  rather  than  his  face  value." 


lA  perusal  of  his  testimony— Chapter  XII— will  leave  no  doubt  as  to  the  truth  of  this  statement. 

23 


CHAPTER  IV 
Dr.   Wiley— "The  Autocrat  of   the   Breakfast  Table" 

This  bitter  fight,  which  has  cost  the  nation  much  money,  and 
innocent  manufacturers  vastly  more,  has  been  carried  on  with  an 
arrogance  and  disregard  for  private  interests  almost  passing  descrip- 
tion or  belief. 

Well  knowing,  before  the  Act  came  into  force,  that  several  law- 
yers of  repute,  and  the  enormously  preponderating  section  of  the 
Whisky  Trade,  dissented  absolutely  from  his  construction  of  the  Law 
and  his  newly-adopted  theories  on  Whisky,  Dr.  Wiley's  clear  duty 
was  to  get  the  Law  and  the  Facts  authoritatively  defined  before  tak- 
ing any  drastic  action.  This  he  was  urged  to  do,  but  would  not. 

No  proper  enquiry,  if  any,  was  instituted  to  ascertain  from  manu- 
facturers, dealers  and  consumers  what  the  name  WHISKY  meant  to 
those  who  made  it,  dealt  in  it,  and  drank  it.  (See  President  Taft's 
Decision — Chapter  VI ) . 

Attorney-General  Bonaparte  was  asked  for  his  opinion  on  the 
question,  "What  is  Whisky?"  which  he  should  not  have  been  asked, 
as  it  is  a  question  of  fact;  but  important  questions  of  Law  which  had 
been  raised,  and  which  were  proper  questions  for  his  consideration, 
were  not  laid  before  him. 

Seizures  were  made,  and  the  owners  were  put  to  enormous  losses 
and  expenses  as  the  result  of  Dr.  Wiley's  fallacious  theories,  which 
were  acted  on  without  any  authoritative  decision  as  to  their  correct- 
ness. 

Foreign  Whiskies,  both  SCOTCH  and  CANADIAN,  which  had  long 
enjoyed  a  high  reputation  and  large  sale  in  the  United  States,  were 
arbitrarily  refused  passage  through  the  Customs,  without  warning, 
for  no  better  reason  than  Dr.  Wiley's  new  doctrines,  and  while  no 
Court  had  passed  upon  the  questions  involved. 

This  threatened  destruction  of  valuable  businesses  was  prevented 
only  by  the  intervention  of  the  Courts. 

24 


Although  the  Law  created  no  Food  "Standards,"  and  Congress, 
as  Dr.  Wiley  was  well  aware,  had  refused  to  pass  a  clause  authorizing 
any  officials  to  make  such  "Standards,"  Dr.  Wiley  practically  defied 
Congress,  for  he  did  create  "Standards"  for  Whisky,  inasmuch  as  he 
condemned  any  Whiskies  which  did  not  conform  to  "Standards"  for- 
mulated by  certain  Associations  in  which  he  had  great  influence: 
which  "Standards,"  by  the  way,  were  adopted  in  gross  ignorance  of 
the  facts,  and  upon  the  recommendation  of  Committees  as  incompe- 
tent for  the  work  as  the  man  in  the  moon.  (See  Chapter  XIV). 

Dr.  Wiley's  subordinate  Chemists  who  condemned  certain  Whis- 
kies, refused  to  give  the  results  of  their  analyses  to  the  manufacturers 
concerned,  and  they  stated  that  they  were  acting  upon  instructions 
from  Washington. 

This  intolerable  situation  continued  until  the  inauguration  of  Mr. 
Taft,  who  at  once  saw  the  gross  injustice  of  it.  His  ability  as  a  law- 
yer, together  with  his  practical  knowledge  of  the  Whisky  Trade1, 
entirely  qualified  him  to  settle  the  whole  dispute  off-hand.  But  he 
took  the  wiser  course  of  ordering  a  full  enquiry  by  the  Solicitor- 
General;  which  completely  demolished  every  one  of  Dr.  Wiley's  con- 
tentions and,  so  far  as  this  question  is  concerned,  proved  him  and  the 
chemists  who  supported  him  to  be  the  veriest  incompetents — as,  we 
are  sure,  all  will  agree  who  read  their  evidence  in  Chapters  XII  and 
XIII. 


IMr.  Taft  had  been  Collector  of  Internal  Revenue  at  Cincinnati — lon£  the  largest  whisky  market  of  the 
world. 

25 


CHAPTER  V 
Doctor  Wiley  is  "Tried  and  Found  Wanting" 

The  enquiry  by  the  Solicitor-General  occupied  nearly  three  weeks, 
and  each  side  was  given  ample  opportunity  for  evidence  and  argu- 
ment. There  was  a  remarkable  difference  in  the  character  of  the 
evidence  offered  for  and  against  Dr.  Wiley's  theories. 

Dr.  Wiley's  views  were  supported  by  a  lot  of  Chemists  and  Phar- 
macists, including  himself,  whose  sorry  exhibition  of  ignorance,  pre- 
sumption and  prejudice  is  recorded  in  Chapters  XII  and  XIII:  added 
to  whom  were  three  Distillers,  who  declared  that  NEUTRAL  SPIRIT 
made  potable  had  never  been  WHISKY.  Unfortunately  for  them,  how- 
ever, two  of  these  had  to  confess  that  they  had  sold  large  quantities  of 
the  article  under  the  name  which  they  alleged  to  be  fraudulent;  and  the 
third  admitted  that  his  dead  father  had  done  the  same  thing. 

The  witnesses  against  Dr.  Wiley's  views  were  a  number  of  Dis- 
tillers, Blenders,  Rectifiers,  Wholesale  Liquor  Dealers  and  Liquor 
Salesmen,  of  high  standing  and  long  experience.  Several  of  them  had 
been  in  the  business  over  fifty  years,  and  the  average  experience  was 
thirty-four  years. 

And  there  were  also  called,  (solely  to  show  the  hollowness  of  Dr. 
Wiley's  pretensions  that  the  question  was  one  of  chemistry) ,  Chemists 
far  outranking  Dr.  Wiley  or  any  of  his  followers,  namely,  Prof. 
Charles  F.  Chandler,  the  Dean  of  the  profession  in  the  United  States ; 
Mr.  Philip  Schidrowitz,  one  of  the  leading  Chemists  of  England; 
with  Dr.  F.  L.  Dunlap,  Chemist  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture, 
and  Prof.  S.  P.  Sadtler,  of  Philadelphia.  If  the  testimony  of  Dr. 
Wiley  and  the  "scientific"  gentlemen  who  supported  him  should  fail  to 
convince  any  reader  of  their  utter  incapacity  to  decide  WHAT  is  WHIS- 
KY, even  if  it  were  a  question  of  chemistry,  we  direct  his  attention 
to  the  opinions  of  opposing  chemists — Chapter  XV. 

ALL  THE  WILEY  CLAIMS  DISPROVED 

Dr.  Wiley  claimed — That  the  only  genuine  WHISKY 
contains  all  the  FUSEL  OIL  of  the  original  distillate,  and 
is  the  so-called  "Straight  Whisky." 

26 


It  was  proved — 

That  it  was  represented  to  Congress  in  1880,  on  behalf 
of  the  Kentucky  "Straight  Whisky"  interest  itself,  that 
the  removal  of  Fusel  Oil  was  absolutely  essential.1 
That  the  "Straight  Whisky"  Distillers  always  believed 
and  claimed,  until  some  three  or  four  years  ago,  that 
the  FUSEL  OIL  was  eliminated  from  their  product  by 
ageing  in  charred  barrels:  but,  on  the  contrary,  only  the 
obnoxious  odor  of  the  FUSEL  OIL  is  so  removed.* 
That  by  almost  every  known  process  of  making  WHISKY, 
ancient  or  modern,  some  portion  of  the  FUSEL  OIL  in 
the  original  distillate  has  been  removed  by  some  form  of 
"rectification." 

That  manufacturers  of  WHISKY  generally  have  always 
endeavoured  to  remove  a  large  proportion  of  the  FUSEL 
OIL,  and  that  the  tendency  has  been  steadily  in  that 
direction.3 

That  "Straight  Whisky"  was  unknown  until  some  fifty 
years  ago4:  previous  to  which  the  only  WHISKY  made 
in  America  was  made  by  rectification  and  redistillation. 
That  the  WHISKY  which  preceded  "Straight  Whisky" 
was  practically  identical  with  what  is  now  referred  to  as 
"Neutral  Spirit  Whisky,"  the  only  difference  being  that 
the  latter  is  a  trifle  more  pure. 

Dr.  Wiley  claimed — That  the  liquor  made  by  dilut- 
ing NEUTRAL  SPIRIT,  (so  called  because  of  its  freedom 
from  FUSEL  OIL) ,  had  never  been  regarded  as  WHISKY 
by  Distillers  and  Dealers. 

It  was  proved — 

That  it  had  been  so  regarded  always,  and  so  recognized 
in  the  largest  Whisky  market  of  the  world. 
That  it  had  been  recognized  by  the  Kentucky  "Straight 
Whisky"  interest  itself,  in  the  most  emphatic  and  public 
manner  possible,  as  far  back  as  1880.     (See  Chapter  XI). 


ISee  Chapter  XI. 

2,  3,  4$ee  President  Taft's  Decision— Chapter  VI. 

27 


Dr.  Wiley  claimed — That  the  sale  of  diluted  NEU- 
TRAL SPIRIT  under  the  name  of  WHISKY  had  been  a  fraud 
on  consumers,  who,  he  alleged,  bought  it  believing  it  to 
be  his  "Natural  Whisky"1  full  of  FUSEL  OIL. 

BUT  NOT  EVEN  ONE  SOLITARY  CONSUMER  WAS  PRODUCED 
TO  SUPPORT  THIS  PREPOSTEROUS  CLAIM.  SURELY,  THEY 
SHOULD  HAVE  HAD  ONE,  AT  LEAST,  IF  THEY  KNEW 
WHERE  TO  FIND  HIM. 

Dr.  Wiley  claimed— That  WHISKY  and  NEUTRAL 
SPIRIT  are  not  "like  substances:"  but  that  all  "Straight 
Whiskies"  are  "like  substances." 

//  was  proved — 

That,  when  new  and  of  equal  alcoholic  strength,  the 
chemical  differences  between  all  grain  spirits  are  solely 
in  the  quantity  of  FUSEL  OIL. 

That  "Straight  Whiskies"  differ  from  one  another  in  this 
respect  much  more  widely  than  many  "Straight  Whiskies" 
differ  from  "Neutral  Spirit." 

Dr.  Wiley  claimed — That  there  is  a  definite  "Whisky 
flavor." 

//  was  proved — 

That  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  "Whisky  flavor"  which 
is  common  to  all  Whiskies. 

That  some  Whiskies  are  more  like  Brandy  than  like  some 
other  Whiskies. 

It  was  shown  that  a  sample  of  American  "Straight"  Whis- 
ky submitted  to  the  English  Royal  Commission  On  Whis- 
ky was  not  recognized  as  WHISKY  by  any  member  of  that 
body. 

Dr.  Wiley  claimed — That  WHISKY  must  have  when 
new  the  flavor  of  FUSEL  OIL. 

It  was  proved — 

That  such  a  proposition  was  utterly  opposed  to  all  the 
written  history  of  the  Whisky  Trade,  running  back  to 
the  seventeenth  century. 

iSec  page  21. 

28 


That  such  a  proposition  had  never  previously  been  heard 
of  by  the  witnesses  who  had  been  in  the  business  fifty 
years  or  more. 

That  the  only  new  Whisky  which  is  drinkable  is  that 
which  is  free  from  Fusel  Oil. 

That  the  characteristic  and  preponderating  flavor  of 
"Straight  Whisky,"  when  fit  for  consumption,  is  derived 
from  the  charred  barrels  in  which  it  is  aged,  and  is  en- 
tirely different  from  its  original  flavor. 

Dr.  Wiley  claimed — That  WHISKY  is  a  natural  prod- 
uct; wherefore,  to  take  anything  from  it,  however  nasty 
or  injurious,  or  to  add  anything,  however  pleasant  and 
harmless,  is  adulteration. 

//  was  not  necessary  to  prove — 

That  WHISKY  is  not  a  natural  product,  because  the  claim 
was  too  absurd,  and  the  Solicitor-General  summarily  dis- 
posed of  it. 

Dr.  Wiley  claimed — That  unless  a  grain  spirit,  when 
new,  can  be  identified  as  a  grain  spirit  by  taste  or  smell, 
it  is  as  much  BRANDY  or  RUM  as  it  is  WHISKY. 

//  was  proved — 

That  the  name  WHISKY  implies  only  origin,  not  flavor 
or  any  other  characteristic  except  alcoholic  character. 
That  the  "Straight  Whisky"  people,  whose  interest  this 
claim  would  advance,  are  the  people  who  most  completely 
"swamp"  the  original  flavor  of  their  spirit. 

Dr.  Wiley  claimed — That  the  color  given  to  WHISKY 
by  charred  barrels  is  a  true  indication  of  age.1 

//  was  proved — 

That  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  "Straight  Whiskies" 
made  in  Kentucky  are  rapidly  colored,  by  heating  the 
WHISKY  so  that  it  extracts  more  color  in  a  few  days  than 
it  would  naturally  get  in  several  years. 

Dr.  Wiley  claimed — That  the  color  given  to  WHISKY 
by  the  addition  of  Caramel,  (harmless  burnt  sugar),  is 
an  imitation  of  the  charred  barrel  color,  and  a  decep- 
tion of  the  public. 

ISee  paee  22. 

29 


was  proved — 

That  Caramel  was  used  a  hundred  years  or  more  before 

charred  barrels:  wherefore,  charred  barrel  coloring  was 

really  an  imitation  of  Caramel  coloring.1 

That  Caramel  coloring  is  still  extensively  used  in  the 

United  States:  that  it  is  used  in  Great  Britain,  where 

charred   barrels   are  unknown:   that   it   is   the   coloring 

exclusively  used  for  Brandy  in  France. 


IPresident  Taft's  Decision — Chapter  VI. 

30 


CHAPTER  VI 
President  Taft's  Decision 

Upon  what  he  described  as  the  "overwhelming"  evidence,  (and  it 
was  truly  overwhelming) ,  President  Taft  decided  wholly  and  com- 
pletely against  Dr.  Wiley's  claims. 

The  President  could  have  done  nothing  else.  The  evidence  only 
confirmed  what  he  already  knew  from  his  experience  years  ago  as 
Collector  of  Internal  Revenue  in  the  great  Whisky  centre  of  the 
United  States:  and  his  decision  accords  absolutely  with  the  con- 
clusions of  the  English  ROYAL  COMMISSION  ON  WHISKY,  a  body  of 
eminent  scientific  and  practical  men,  presided  over  by  Lord  James  of 
Hereford,  one  of  the  greatest  Jurists  of  the  day. 

President  Taft  did  much  more  than  terminate  an  intolerable  in- 
justice: he  saved  the  people  of  the  United  States  from  a  monopoly 
in  favor  of  THE  WHISKY  WHICH  is  THE  LEAST  PURE,  as  it  is  also 

THE  LEAST  POPULAR. 

Yet,  the  President  has  been  roundly  abused  by  a  multitude  of 
newspapers,  upon  no  better  ground  than  that  he  has  reversed  what  it 
suits  certain  people  to  call  the  "ROOSEVELT-BONAPARTE-WILEY  WHIS- 
KY DECISION." 

That  is  a  misnomer.  It  was  purely  "The  Wiley  1907  Decision." 
Dr.  Wiley  persuaded  Mr.  Bonaparte  that  Dr.  Wiley  knew  all  about 
Whisky:  Mr.  Bonaparte  wrote  an  opinion  based  upon  a  wrong  state- 
ment of  facts:  and  as  he  was  the  Attorney-General,  Mr.  Roosevelt 
accepted  it. 

What  the  papers  and  the  people  ought  to  understand  is,  that  the 
so-called  "Roosevelt-Bonaparte-Wiley  Decision"  of  1907  reversed  the 
Wiley  Decision  of  1906  and  earlier  years. 

Had  the  question  arisen  in  1906,  President  Taft  would  never  have 
been  troubled  with  it,  for  Dr.  Wiley's  position  in  that  year  was 
precisely  what  President  Taft's  Decision  establishes. 

President  Taft  has,  fortunately,  insured  the  public  against  the 
perils  of  Dr.  Wiley's  too  impressionable  mind. 

31 


*  It  is  a  singular  thing,  that  the  great  Whisky  Controversy  which 
has  raged  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  during  the  past  four  years, 
was  started  in  each  case  by  a  Chemist — Dr.  Wiley,  on  this  side;  Dr. 
Teed,  on  the  other.  And  both  have  been  shown  to  be  utterly  wrong. 

EXTRACTS   FROM   THE    PRESIDENT'S    DECISION 

"In  Internal  Revenue  Order  No.  723  (April,  1 907 )t  directions 
were  given  as  to  how  certain  distilled  spirits  should  be  branded.  The 
effect  of  this  order  was  to  deny  the  right  to  the  use  of  the  brand 
WHISKY  to  any  distilled  liquor  except  that  which  is  known  to  the 
trade  as  STRAIGHT  WHISKY.  *  *  * 

"The  Pure  Food  Act  does  not  mention  the  term  WHISKY;  it  does 
not  authorize  any  officers  to  fix  a  standard  in  respect  to  any  article 
of  food  or  liquor.  *  *  * 

"Attorney-General  Bonaparte  was  asked  to  pass  upon  the  question 
of  what  properly  might  be  included  under  the  brand  of  WHISKY 
*  *  *  he  had  not  the  benefit  of  any  evidence  as  to  the  mean- 
ing or  scope  of  the  term,  acquired  from  manufacturers,  dealers  or 
consumers  in  the  trade. 

"Internal  Revenue  Order  723  was  founded  on  Mr.  Bonaparte's 
opinions. 

"A  petition  was  filed  *  *  *  asking  that  the  issue  passed  upon 
by  Mr.  Bonaparte  *  *  *  be  reheard,  on  the  ground  that  the 
meaning  of  the  term  WHISKY  is  one  of  fact,  and  is  to  be  properly 
determined  only  after  consideration  of  competent  evidence  drawn  from 
those  familiar  with  the  trade  in  which  liquors  are  manufactured  and 
sold. 

"The  rehearing  was  granted,  and  the  matter  was  referred  to  Hon. 
Lloyd  Bowers,  Solicitor-General  *  *  * 

"A  very  full  hearing  was  had  before  the  Solicitor-General  *  *  * 
He  found  from  the  evidence  that  WHISKY,  as  a  term  of  the  trade  for 
many  years,  included  much  more  than  STRAIGHT  WHISKY  ;  that  it  in- 
cluded RECTIFIED  WHISKY,  REDISTILLED  WHISKY  *  *  * 

"Because  of  the  importance  of  the  case,  I  have  thought  it  necessary 
to  read  with  care  the  entire  evidence  adduced  *  *  * 

"WHISKY,  for  more  than  one  hundred  years,  has  been  the  most 
general  and  comprehensive  term  applied  to  liquor  distilled  from 
grain  Its  flavor  and  color  have  varied  with  the  changes 

in  the  process  of  its  manufacture  in  the  United  States,  Ireland,  Scot- 

32 


land  and  England  *  *  *  The  efforts  of  those  engaged  in  the 
manufacture  were  directed  toward  the  reduction  of  the  amount  of 
FUSEL  OIL  in  the  product.  *  *  *  This  was  effected  for  a  great 
many  years  by  passing  the  distilled  spirit  through  leaching  tubs  of 
charcoal  *  *  *  and  subsequently,  rectification  was  followed  by 
another  step —  i.  e.  redistillation.  * 

"Though  there  was  some  American  white  Whisky,  the  convention- 
al amber  or  brown  color  *  *  *  was  that  produced  by  a  mixture 
of  the  raw  Whisky,  with  its  FUSEL  OIL  reduced  as  much  as  possible, 
and  of  burnt  sugar  or  caramel. 

"Some  time  during  the  Civil  War,  it  was  discovered  that  if  raw 
Whisky  as  it  came  from  the  still,  unrectified  and  without  redistilla- 
tion, *  *  *  was  kept  in  oak  barrels,  the  inside  of  the  staves  of 
which  were  charred,  the  tannic  acid  of  the  charred  oak  which  found 
its  way  from  the  wood  into  the  distilled  spirits  would  color  the  raw 
white  Whisky  to  the  conventional  color  of  American  Whisky  *  *  * 
The  Whisky  thus  made  *  *  *  came  to  be  known  as  STRAIGHT 

WHISKY.       *       *       * 

"It  was  supposed  for  a  long  time  that  by  the  ageing  of  STRAIGHT 
WHISKY  in  the  charred  wood  a  chemical  change  took  place  which  rid 
the  liquor  of  FUSEL  OIL  *  *  *  It  now  appears  by  chemical 
analysis  that  this  is  untrue;  that  the  effect  of  the  ageing  is  only  to 
dissipate  the  odor,  and  to  modify  the  raw,  unpleasant  flavor,  but  to 
leave  the  FUSEL  OIL  still  in  the  STRAIGHT  WHISKY  *  *  * 

"After  an  examination  of  all  the  evidence,  it  seems  to  me  over- 
whelmingly established  that  for  a  hundred  years  the  term  WHISKY, 
in  the  trade  and  among  the  customers,  has  included  all  potable 
liquor  distilled  from  grain.  *  *  * 

"Exactly  the  same  question  has  arisen  in  England,  and  has  been 
determined  by  a  Royal  Commission  of  eminent  lawyers  and  scien- 
tific men  in  the  same  way  *  *  * 

"The  use  of  burnt  sugar  to  color  and  flavor  spirits  as  Whisky  is 
much  older  than  the  coloring  and  flavoring  by  the  tannin  of  the 
charred  oak." 


33 


CHAPTER  VII 

Attorney-General  Wickersham  Sustains  the  Interpre- 
tation of  the  Law  which  We  Submitted  to 
Doctor  Wiley  Four  Years  Before 

(Extracts  from  Opinion  to  the  Hon.  the  Secretary  of  Agriculture.) 

"CANADIAN  CLUB  WHISKY  is,  you  say,  entirely  'a  mixture  of  grain 
distillates,  duly  aged  after  mixing,  without  further  admixture.'  It  is 
therefore,  a  mixture  of  two  whiskies,  as,  under  the  President's  decision, 
the  term  WHISKY  in  the  trade  and  among  customers  includes  all 
potable  liquor  distilled  from  grain.  *  *  * 

"  'CANADIAN  CLUB  WHISKY'  is  a  trade  or  arbitrary  name  which 
clearly  distinguishes  the  particular  mixture  of  whiskies  so  designated 
from  any  other  whisky  or  mixture  of  whiskies. 

"This  distinctive  name,  'CANADIAN  CLUB  WHISKY,'  is  not  one  rep- 
resenting any  single  constituent  of  the  mixture,  because  the  word 
WHISKY  applies  to  both  of  the  component  elements  of  the  mixture, 
and  to  each  of  them. 

"The  name  'CANADIAN  CLUB  WHISKY'  does  not  misrepresent  any 
property  or  quality  of  the  mixture,  because,  within  the  President's 
definition,  each  of  the  elements  of  the  mixture  is  WHISKY,  and  the 
resultant  mixture  is  WHISKY. 

"The  name,  'CANADIAN  CLUB  WHISKY'  gives  no  false  indication  of 
the  origin,  character,  or  place  of  manufacture.  *  *  * 

"The  brief  of  the  Solicitor  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture  con- 
tends that  the  Distinctive  Name  under  which  a  mixture  or  compound 
may  be  sold  must,  in  its  entirety,  be  purely  arbitrary  or  fanciful,  and 
must  not  contain  the  name  of  the  component  elements  of  the  com- 
pound. A  mixture  of  wheat  and  barley,  he  concedes,  might  be  sold 
as  'FORCE'  or  VITA,'  without  stating  of  what  elements  it  was  com- 
posed, but  a  mixture  of  two  kinds  of  barley  could  not  be  sold  as 
'MELROSE  BARLEY'  without  stating  that  it  was  ra  blend  of  barleys.' 

"It  seems  to  me  that  such  a  construction  of  the  term  'Distinctive 
'  is  not  only  unwarranted,  but  undesirable." 

34 


THE  ABOVE  ABSOLUTELY  ACCORDS  WITH  THE  OPINIONS  OF  OUR 
LAWYERS,  WHICH  WERE  PLACED  IN  DOCTOR  WILEY'S  HANDS  before 
THE  PURE  FOOD  LAW  CAME  INTO  EFFECT,  BUT  WHICH  he  DID  NOT 
CONSIDER  IT  NECESSARY  TO  SUBMIT  TO  THE  legal  ADVISER  OF  THE 
GOVERNMENT — THE  CONSEQUENCE  BEING  THAT  WE  WERE  FOR 
NEARLY  FOUR  YEARS  MOST  UNJUSTLY  PLACED  IN  THE  PREJUDICIAL 
POSITION  OF  presumed  LAW-BREAKERS,  WITH  EXPENSE  AND  LOSS 
RUNNING  INTO  HUNDREDS  OF  THOUSANDS  OF  DOLLARS. 


NOTE. 

We  always  denied  that  CANADIAN  CLUB  was  a  "mixture"  in  the 
eyes  of  the  law;  and  it  was  assumed  to  be  so  only  for  the  purposes  of 
the  argument  before  the  Attorney-General — our  contention  being 
that,  even  if  CANADIAN  CLUB  was  a  "mixture"  within  the  meaning 
of  the  Pure  Food  Law,  its  Distinctive  Name  was  all  the  description 
required. 

Whisky  plus  Whisky  cannot  be  anything  but  WHISKY:  and  if  it 
must  be  sold  as  a  "mixture,"  nothing  is  more  sure  than  that  the  com- 
bined milk  of  two  or  more  cows,  the  combined  wheat  of  two  or  more 
farms,  the  combined  coffee  of  two  or  more  plantations,  must  also  be 
sold  as  "mixtures."1 

Congress  cannot  be  presumed  to  have  attempted  the  impossible — 
to  say  nothing  of  what  would  be  utterly  senseless. 

When  it  can  be  said  that  any  possible  good  could  result  from  call- 
ing combinations  of  milk,  wheat  and  coffee  "mixtures,"  it  may  be 
claimed  that  Congress  intended  combinations  of  Whisky  to  be  called 
"mixtures:"  but  it  would  still  remain  to  be  shown  how  effect  could 
be  given  to  that  intention. 


ISee  page  45 — first  paragraph, 

35 


CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Attempt  to  Oust  "Canadian  Club  Whisky "  from 
the  United  States 

. 

At  the  World's  Columbian  Exposition  in  1893,  Doctor  Wiley 
was  the  analyst  of  Whiskies.  He  reported  CANADIAN  CLUB  WHISKY 
to  be 

"pure  and  fully  up  to  the  examination  required" 
and,  by  authority  of  Congress,  it  received  an  award  for 

"fine    aroma,    very    pleasant    taste,    thorough    maturity, 
"purity  and  absence  of  alien  matter." 

This  whisky  has  always  been  made  with  an  eye  to  uniform  flavor 
with  the  minimum  of  fusel  oil. 

We  retain  certain  of  the  grain  flavors,  and  there  is  no  method 
known  to  distillers  by  which  these  can  be  got  without  at  least  a 
small  amount  of  fusel  oil. 

It  follows,  that  the  total  elimination  of  fusel  oil  means  also  the 
total  elimination  of  grain  flavors. 

A  distillate  practically  free  from  both,  (and  consequently  known 
by  the  technical  name  of  NEUTRAL  SPIRIT),  can  be  produced  with 
practically  absolute  uniformity;  but  a  distillate  having  grain  -flavor 
never  runs  uniform. 

Therefore,  we  pursue  the  only  course  by  which  the  most  uniform 
product  can  be  got:  we  make  two  distillates  of  opposite  character — 
one,  having  the  grain  flavors  and  a  very  small  amount  of  fusel  oil; 
another,  having  practically  neither. 

When  these  two  distillates  are  combined  in  such  proportions  as 
give  the  desired  flavor,  the  small  amount  of  fusel  oil  in  the  one  is  so 
distributed  that  it  becomes  a  negligible  quantity:  the  mixture  is  re- 
duced to  the  proper  strength  with  water,  and  put  away  in  oak  casks 
to  mature  for  at  least  five  years. 

When  matured,  and  not  before,  it  is  CANADIAN  CLUB  WHISKY  as 
known  in  the  market,  for  we  have  never  sold  a  barrel  of  it  until 
thoroughly  aged  and  ready  for  consumption. 

36 


CANADIAN  CLUB  WHISKY  was  introduced  into  the  United  States 
some  twenty-five  years  ago,  in  the  face  of  great  Tariff  obstacles,  which 
have  continued  to  this  day.1 

By  sheer  merit  it  slowly,  but  steadily,  made  headway,  until  about 
fifteen  years  ago  it  had  become  so  extremely  popular  that  the  market 
was  flooded  with  imitations  of  its  label,  owing  to  which  our  trade 
dropped  thirty  per  cent  in  a  single  year. 

There  was  then  no  PURE  FOOD  LAW  to  protect  us ;  and  the  Courts 
were  too  slow  and  too  lenient  to-  intimidate  the  rascals  who  were  selling 
a  new,  and  therefore  cheap,  Whisky  at  the  price  of  a  fine,  old,  and 
therefore  expensive,  Whisky  which  had  paid  a  heavy  tax  for  the  privi- 
lege of  entering  the  country. 

For  several  years,  and  at  enormous  cost,  we  fought  this  piracy 
single-handed,  and  at  last  suppressed  the  worst  of  it:  but  it  was  not 
entirely  destroyed,  and  we  were  able  to  keep  it  down  only  by  con- 
stantly maintaining  an  expensive  detective  system. 

Naturally,  then,  we  hailed  the  PURE  FOOD  LAW  as  a  blessing,  little 
suspecting  that  what  was  intended  by  Congress  as  a  protection  for 
honest  manufacturers  as  well  as  for  the  public,  would  at  once  be 
made  the  pretext  for  an  invasion  of  our  rights  and  an  attack  upon  our 
reputation,  more  damaging  and  more  difficult  to  meet  than  the  work 
of  the  thieves  we  had  previously  encountered. 

The  "Fake"  Whisky  fellows  simply  stole  our  trade.  The  success 
of  the  attempt  to  pervert  the  Pure  Food  Law  would  have  destroyed 
both  our  trade  and  our  good  name. 

THE  INSIDIOUS  ATTACK 

The  PURE  FOOD  LAW  was  passed  June  30,  1906,  to  become  effect- 
ive January  I,  1907. 

In  November,  1906,  while  we  were  pleasantly  anticipating  the 
reformations  intended  by  the  excellent  PURE  FOOD  LAW,  we  heard  the 
first  rumours  of  Dr.  Wiley's  extraordinary  change  of  views,  and 
what  it  was  suspected  he  purposed  doing. 

The  thing  seemed  unbelievable ;  but  one  of  our  Directors  went  to 
Washington  to  investigate,  and  in  Dr.  Wiley's  absence,  had  an  inter- 
view with  his  Deputy,  Dr.  Bigelow,  which  confirmed  what  we  had 

lA  bottle  of  Canadian  Club  Whisky  pays  the  American  Government,  at  present,  48%  cents:  under  the 
previous  tariff  it  paid  42  cents.  Its  equivalent  in  American  Whisky  pays  now,  as  before,  only  18  cents. 

37 


been  told.  Dr.  Bigelow  was  shown  a  very  strong  opinion  by  Mr. 
Alfred  Lucking,  'our  Detroit  lawyer,  to  the  effect  that  the  law  re- 
quired no  change  whatever  in  our  label:  but  Dr.  Bigelow  seemed  to 
care  nothing  about  a  mere  Lawyer's  interpretation  of  the  law. 

Thinking  that  there  might  be  lawyers  whose  opinions  the  Official 
Chemists  would  respect,  or  that  would  at  least  cause  them  to  pause 
before  pursuing  a  high-handed  course,  we  obtained  an  opinion  from 
the  Hon.  Joseph  H.  Choate,  which  reviewed  the  entire  Act,  clause  by 
clause,  and  emphatically  confirmed  the  conclusions  of  Mr.  tucking. 

Mr.  Choate's  opinion  was  promptly  placed  in  Dr.  Wiley's  hands; 
but  it  made  no  more  impression  upon  that  autocratic  gentleman  than 
Mr.  Lucking's  opinion  had  made  upon  Dr.  Bigelow. 

Then  followed  a  correspondence  with  Dr.  Wiley  and  his  Depart- 
ment. We  argued  the  disputed  points  from  the  practical  standpoint, 
based  upon  our  life-long  and  world^wide  knowledge  of  the  Whisky 
Trade,  and  urged  that  articles  and  reputations  which  had  never  before 
been  questioned  anywhere  in  the  world,  should  not  be  hastily  impeached 
before  the  PURE  FOOD  LAW  had  been  judicially  interpreted. 

No  attempt  was  made  to  meet  our  arguments;  but  we  were 
repeatedly  assured  that  there  was  no  desire  to  injure  any  legitimate 
interest.  What  these  assurances  were  worth  will  appear  from  what 
follows. 

About  April  I,  1908,  without  a  word  of  warning;  without  any 
reply  to  our  arguments;  without  any  trial  before  Judge  or  Jury; 
without  even  a  hearing  by  the  officials  administering  the  PURE  FOOD 
LAW;  and,  most  unbelievable  of  all,  without  our  being  requested  to 
change  the  labelling  of  our  Whisky  in  any  particular — and,  therefore, 
without  any  refusal  or  failure  on  our  part;  "Canadian  Club  Whisky" 
was  peremptorily  refused  admission  into  the  United  States. 

Pending  a  hearing  at  Washington,  we  asked  to  be  allowed  to  take 
in  from  day  to  day  enough  Whisky  to  fill  our  normal  orders,  pledging 
ourselves  not  to  stimulate  sales  in  any  way  in  the  meantime.  This 
was  refused.  To  save  our  American  trade  from  prompt  extinction, 
we  appealed  to  the  Courts,  which  granted  us  a  temporary  injunc- 
tion. 

That  resulted  in  our  being  promised  all  we  had  ever  asked  for, 
namely,  that  the  United  States  Courts  should  decide  whether  we 
were  offending  against  United  States  Laws. 

38 


The  way  to  bring  the  case  before  the  Courts  was  to  make  a 
seizure  of  "Canadian  Club." 

Inasmuch  as  the  Whisky  is  the  same  always  and  everywhere,  the 
seizure  of  a  single  bottle  would  have  been  enough. 

Inasmuch  as  the  Government  of  the  United  States  is  everywhere 
in  the  United  States,  and  seeing  that  our  American  headquarters  are 
in  Detroit,  close  to  our  Canadian  headquarters,  we  might  have 
expected  that  the  seizure  would  be  made  there,  and  only  there.  Inas- 
much as  it  cannot  be  supposed  that  Congress  intended  that  the  same 
question  as  to  the  same  article  should  be  tried  in  several  places  at  once, 
much  less  that  it  intended  persecution  before  trial,  we  did  not  expect 
duplicate  seizures  all  over  the  country. 

B.ut  practically  concurrent  seizures  were  made  in  New  York, 
Newark,  Philadelphia,  Pittsburg,  Jacksonville,  Milwaukee,  St.  Paul 
and  Minneapolis,  in  such  lots  as  could  be  found,  totalling  493  cases  ; 
and  in  Detroit  5405  cases  were  seized  in  one  lot:  making  in  all  5898 
cases,  on  which  we  had  paid  the  United  States  Customs  close  to 
$31,000  in  duties. 

If  one  seizure  had  been  made  in  Washington  only,  it  might  have 
been  defended  on  the  ground  that  the  seat  of  government  was  most 
convenient  for  the  officials  concerned :  but  what  was  done  was  surely 
not  justifiable  or  reasonable  on  any  ground  of  protecting  the  public 
interests. 

As  was  to  be  expected,  these  large  and  wide-spread  seizures  in- 
jured us  very  seriously.  The  average  man  does  not  suppose  that 
the  Government  makes  wholesale  seizures  of  well-known  goods, 
unless  there  is  something  unquestionably  and  radically  wrong.  That 
it  simply  indicated  a  question  raised  by  an  official,  (even  so  great  a 
one  as  Dr.  Wiley),  no  ordinary  man  would  believe  for  a  moment. 

Some  months  later,  it  apparently  occurred  to  someone  that  the 
enormous  seizure  in  Detroit  would  be  regarded  by  the  Courts  with 
disfavor,  and  5300  cases  were  released.  This  was  the  position  of 
affairs  until  President  Taft's  decision  was  rendered  in  December, 
1909.  (See  Chapter  VI.) 

That  decision  should  have  ended  everything,  so  far  as  we  were 
concerned;  but  it  did  not, 

Someone  set  up  the  contention  that  "Canadian  Club"  was  a 
Blended  Whisky,  and  was  required  under  the  Law  to  be  so  described. 

39 


We  objected,  for  two  reasons:  Firstly,  "Canadian  Club"  was 
never  what  is  called  "Blended  Whisky"  anywhere  in  the  world1:  there- 
fore, although  the  name  is,  in  itself,  irreproachable,  for  many  of  the 
>^ery  finest  Whiskies  are  "Blends,"  we  naturally  declined  to  misbrand 
our  product.  Secondly,  we  were  not  willing  that  anyone  should  be 
able  to  insinuate  that  a  PURE  FOOD  LAW  had  compelled  us  to  change 
our  label.  And  that  there  were  those  who  would  so  insinuate,  we 
had  the  best  of  reason  for  believing,  from  the  fact  that  certain  un- 
known parties  had  flooded  the  country  with  anonymous  notices  to 
dealers  that  they  incurred  great  danger  of  prosecution  if  they  carried 
our  Whisky  in  stock. 

Thus,  after  another  ten  months'  waiting,  with  further  heavy  loss 
and  expense  to  us,  the  interpretation  of  the  Law  by  Attorney-General 
Wickersham  made  our  vindication  complete;2  the  seizures  were  re- 
leased; and  CANADIAN  CLUB  stands  to-day  unchallenged  and  unchal- 
lengeable as  having  always  been  a  PURE  WHISKY  TRUTHFULLY 

LABELLED. 

We  trust  we  have  not  wearied  our  readers  by  this  personal  narra- 
tive: and  we  feel  sure  that  every  fair-minded  American  will  agree 
with  us  that  it  is  a  story  of  almost  unimaginable  outrage. 

Our  last  word  as  to  our  private  interests,  however,  is 
that  we  do  not  in  the  least  reflect  upon  the  Government 
itself.  We  know  that  for  what  we  and  so  many  other 
innocent  persons  have  suffered,  Dr.  Wiley's  instability 
of  mind  and  autocratic  methods  are  solely  to  blame. 


l"Blended  Whisky"  has  never  meant  a  mixture  of  the  distillates  of  the  one  distiller,  put  together  by  him- 
selfbtftrt  afeine — which  describes  Canadian  Club  ffhisijr.    (See  earlier  part  of  this  chapter.) 
*See  Chapter  VII. 

40 


CHAPTER  IX 
The  Language  of  Distilling 

(Note. — This  refers  to  grain  distilling  only:  it  being  agreed  that 
WHISKY  must  be  produced  from  grain.) 

Distillers,  like  most  manufacturers,  use  names  which  the  public 
do  not  use,  particularly  for  articles  only  partially  manufactured.  The 
public  are  interested  only  in  the  names  given  to  articles  ready  for  use. 

The  names  used  for  unfinished  grain  distillates  are : 
HIGH  WINES — raw,  unpurified,  unpotable  spirits,  of  no  fixed  strength, 

except  that  they  are  not  below  "proof."1 

LOW  WINES — raw,  unpurified,  unpotable  spirits,  of  no  fixed  strength, 
except  that  they  are  below  "proof." 

The  names  used  for  finished  grain  distillates  are: 

ALCOHOL — spirits  of  very  high  strength,  but  no  fixed  purity :  produced 
by  re-distilling  HIGH  WINES  to  higher  strength. 

NEUTRAL  SPIRIT — spirits  of  very  high  strength  and  purity:  produced 
by  re-distilling  HIGH  WINES  to  both  higher  strength  and  purity. 
(Also  called  COLOGNE  SPIRIT,  SILENT  SPIRIT  and  VELVET  SPIRIT  : 
and  formerly  FRENCH  SPIRIT.) 

WHISKY — spirits  as  a  beverage,  about  half  the  strength  of  ALCOHOL, 
but  of  no  fixed  purity:  produced  by  diluting  either  ALCOHOL, 
HIGH  WINES  or  NEUTRAL  SPIRIT  by  the  addition  of  water. 

The  only  difference  between  HIGH  WINES  and  WHISKY,  or  ALCO- 
HOL and  WHISKY,  or  NEUTRAL  SPIRIT  and  WHISKY,  is  water.  In  other 
words,  any  GRAIN  SPIRIT  OF  PROPER  STRENGTH  FOR  drinking  is 
Whisky.2 

The  only  chemical  difference  between  original  Whiskies,  (before 
color  or  flavor  has  been  added,  or  extracted  from  the  cask),  is  in 


1  "Proof,"  by  the  Standard  in  use  in  the  United  States,  is  equal  parts  of  Alcohol  and  water. 
2See  President  Taft's  Decision— Chapter  VI. 

41 


the  proportions  of  Alcohol,  Water  and  Fusel  Oil ;  i.  e.  the  degree  of 
strength  and  purity. 

The  difference  between  WHISKY  when  first  made  and  WHISKY  as 
known  to  the  public,  lies  in  color,  or  flavor,  or  both,  added  to  it,  or  ex- 
tracted by  it  from  the  cask.1 

In  former  days  distillers  made  no  WHISKY.  All  the  whisky  was 
made  by  "Rectifiers,"  who  bought  their  raw  material  from  the  dis- 
tillers. An  editorial  in  the  Cincinnati  Times-Chronicle  of  April  12, 
1872,  contained  the  following: 

"Before  the  war,  a  distiller  never  dreamed  of  selling  his 
"raw  material  save  to  the  rectifier." 

That  raw  material  was  High  Wines,  which  the  "Rectifiers"  sub- 
jected to  such  purification  as  they  saw  fit,  by  varying  methods,  and 
colored,  or  colored  and  flavored,  to  meet  the  public  taste. 

By  improved  apparatus,  the  distiller  was  able  later  to  purify 
his  High  Wines.  The  fine  spirit  thus  produced  was  given  the  name 
of  NEUTRAL  SPIRIT,  and  was  practically  identical  with  the  fine  spirit 
formerly  produced  by  "Rectifiers"  for  making  WHISKY. 

Therefore,  the  Whisky  made  for  the  last  forty  years  or  so  from 
Neutral  Spirit  was  not  a  new  departure  in  character,  but  only  in  proc- 
ess: it  is  really  the  most  ancient  style  of  Whisky  made  in  America. 

ff Straight  Whisky"  on  the  contrary,  was  a  distinctly  new  type  of 
Whisky,  and  is  of  comparatively  recent  origin.  It  is  unpurified  High 
Wines f  diluted  and  aged  in  a  charred  barrel.2 

"Blended  Whisky,"  as  always  understood  in  the  United  States,  is  a 
mixture  of  the  two  Whiskies  above  mentioned,  in  such  proportions 
as  the  Blender  chooses,  but  the  "Straight  Whisky"  always  already 
fully  aged,  and  the  "Refined  Whisky"  new. 

Before  the  passage  of  the  PURE  FOOD  LAW,  Whiskies  were  rarely 
branded  cither  "Straight"  or  "Blended."  The  Law  does  not  now  re- 
quire that  they  shall  be  so  branded. 

"Straight  Whisky"  has  never  been  largely  popular  in  the  United 
States,  except  in  limited  localities.  Dr.  Wiley  estimates  that  in 
the  country  at  large  it  is  but  five  per  cent  of  the  consumption. 

1.  *Sce  President  Taft's  Decision — Chapter  VI. 

42 


The  only  names  used  by,  or  known  to,  the  general  public  are: 
WHISKY-  -which  they  buy  to  drink. 

ALCOHOL — which  they  buy  to  burn,  for  bathing  invalids,  for  numerous 
other  purposes ;  but  never  to  drink. 

Just  as  the  general  public  know  that  CHEESE  is  made  from  milk, 
but  not  that  it  is  made  from  the  curds  without  the  whey,  so  do  they 
know  that  WHISKY  is  made  from  grain,  but  not  that  before  it  becomes 
WHISKY  it  is  some  form  of  SPIRIT  which  distillers  call  by  another  name. 

Concerning  Flavor. 

As  far  back  as  the  history  of  WHISKY  goes,  added  flavorings  have 
been  extensively  used.  They  have  varied  from  spices  and  other 
aromatics  long  ago  in  Ireland,  to  burnt  peaches,  dried  apples,  and 
many  other  things,  in  Kentucky  and  elsewhere.  But  when  nothing 
is  added,  WHISKY  aged  in  casks,  whether  charred  or  uncharred,  ac- 
quires some  flavor  as  well  as  color  from  the  wood. 

It  follows  that  there  is  no  definite  "Whisky  Flavor."  Indeed, 
some  Whiskies  are  more  like  Brandy  than  like  other  Whiskies. 

Concerning  Fusel  Oil. 

Fusel  Oil  is  the  name  by  which  all  the  impurities  of  Grain 
Spirits  have  been  universally  known  for  a  very  long  time.  It  is  an 
evil-smelling,  evil-tasting  substance,  which  consumers  have  generally 
regarded  as  a  rank  poison,  to  be  carefully  avoided. 

Manufacturers  of  Whisky  have  always  recognized  the  popular 
aversion  to  Fusel  Oil,  and  have  always  aimed  at  its  practical  elimina- 
tion before  the  Whisky  went  into  consumption.1 

Of  late  the  word  "Congeners"  has  been  much  substituted  for 
"Fusel  Oil."  The  new  name  is  Doctor  Wiley's  invention:  and  it  is 
surmised  that  he  adopted  it  with  his  new  theories — as  an  alias  by 
which  a  thing  in  bad  repute  might  escape  public  recognition. 

Many  manufacturers  have  practically  eliminated  the  Fusel  Oil  by 
mechanical  means,  and  before  ageing  the  whisky.  Others  have  relied 
upon  ageing  in  charred  barrels :  which  was  long  thought  to  be  effective, 
but  is  now  known  to  be  useless.1 


*.  2See  President  Taft's  Decision — Chapter  VI. 

43 


CHAPTER  X 
The   Pure  Food  Law— Its  Objects  and  Requirements 

Its  objects  are:  "To  preserve  the  health  of  the  people;  to 
"prevent  their  being  deceived  by  label  or  brand." — (President  Taft). 
"The  primary  purpose  is  to  protect  against  fraud." — (Attorney- 
General  Bonaparte). 

It  does  not  say  that  articles  must  be  branded  or  labelled  in  some 
way,  but  only  that  they  must  not  be  falsely  branded  or  labelled. 

It  does  not  say  to  what  extent  brands  or  labels  shall  be  descrip- 
tive: consequently,  if  any  one  of  the  many  kinds  of  Cheese  is  branded 
simply  CHEESE,  the  law  is  satisfied. 

It  neither  establishes  nor  refers  to  any  FOOD  STANDARDS. 
President  Taft  says :     "It  does  not  authorize  any  officers  to  fix  a 
STANDARD  in  respect  to  any  article  of  food." 

It  gives  no  officials,  (chemists  or  others),  power  to  decide  what  is 
illegal.  It  provides  that  when  chemists  consider  an  article  to  be 
adulterated  or  misbranded,  the  party  interested  shall  be  entitled  to  a 
hearing  by  the  Secretary  of  Agriculture.  If,  after  that,  the  article 
is  still  considered  to  be  adulterated  or  misbranded,  the  proper  Dis- 
trict Attorney  shall  take  action  in  the  Courts  to  determine  the  ques- 
tion. 

As  the  means  of  bringing  the  article  before  the  courts,  a  "seizure" 
of  it  is  to  be  made.  It  is  obvious  that  a  single  "seizure"  of  the  same 
article,  and  of  a  single  package  of  it,  is  sufficient;  as  it  would  be 
absurd  to  suppose  that  Congress  intended  there  should  be  numerous 
suits  in  numerous  courts  at  the  one  time  on  the  one  question. 

It  does  not  suggest  the  changing  of  old  names.  It  is  obvious 
that  to  deceive  the  public  by  the  improper  use  of  a  name,  it  must 
be  a  name  which  they  already  know. 

The  Law  embraces  Liquors  under  the  head  of  FOODS. 

44 


The  Act  does  not  once  mention  WHISKY.  Its  provisions  apply 
generally,  and  to  one  food  equally  with  any  other.  Therefore,  it 
requires  in  regard  to  WHISKY  no  more  and  no  less  than  in  regard  to 

BUTTER,  or  SUGAR,  Or  COFFEE,  or  TEA. 

The  interpretation  of  the  Act  is  a  matter  for  Lawyers.  A  judge 
always  instructs  a  jury  as  to  what  the  law  is :  they  never  decide  that. 

The  proper  name  for  any  Food  is  a  question  of  fact,  to  be  decided 
by  evidence.  A  Judge  always  leaves  the  Jury  to  decide  what  the 
facts  are.  The  question  is — "What  article  and  what  name  go 
together  in  the  minds  of  the  public?" 


45 


CHAPTER  XI 
Congressional  Debate  on  Whisky 


HIGHLY-REFINED  WHISKY,  TECHNICALLY  KNOWN  AS      CONTINUOUS 
WHISKY,"   BEING  THE  WHISKY  MADE  FROM  ' 'NEUTRAL  SPIRIT," 
RECOGNIZED  AS  "WHISKY"  BY  CONGRESS  AND  BY  THE  KEN- 
TUCKY "STRAIGHT  WHISKY"  DISTILLERS,  MORE 

THAN    THIRTY   YEARS    AGO. 


The  Kentucky  "Straight  Whisky"  interest,  taking  their  cue  from 
Dr.  Wiley's  new  doctrines,  contended  that  the  only  spirit  entitled  to 
be  called  WHISKY,  is  the  spirit  which  contains  all  the  Fusel  Oil. 

They  declared  that  the  spirit  free  from  Fusel  Oil,  which  has  long 
been  sold  in  enormous  quantities  as  WHISKY,  was  a  mere  imitation: 
that  not  even  its  makers  regarded  it  as  real  WHISKY:  that  the  public 
had  accepted  it  under  the  belief  that  it  contained  the  Fusel  Oil,  and 
would  have  refused  it  had  they  known  otherwise. 

Speaking  of  this  "Refined  Whisky,"  before  the  Solicitor-General, 
Dr.  Wiley  said : 

"It  has  always  been  known,  from  the  earliest  times  in  this 
"country,  in  the  earliest  debates  in  Congress,  as  far  back 
"as  1860,  as  spurious  or  imitation  whisky" 

Their  cardinal  contention,  and  every  allegation  above-mentioned, 
is  torn  to  rags  by  the  Congressional  Record. 


In  1880,  Mr.  J.  G.  Carlisle,  then  a  member  of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, introduced  a  Bill  for  the  relief  of  "Straight  Whisky" 
distillers,  which  was  passed  and  has  been  known  as  the  "Carlisle 
Bill." 

The  following  extracts  from  the  debate  thereon  show  that  the 
claims  to  have  the  Bill  passed  were  based  upon  the  argument  that 
"Continuous  Whisky,"  (the  name  then  given  to  the  most  refined 
Whisky),  had  advantages  over  the  "Straight  Whisky." 

46 


Yet  this  same  Mr.  Carlisle  was  counsel  for  these  Kentucky 
"Straight  Whisky"  distillers  in  this  controversy,  and  he  took  the 
ground  that  "Continuous  Whisky"  had  never  really  been  entitled  to 
the  name  WHISKY. 


Mr.  Garfield:  In  order  to  enable  i"Ke  gentlemen  who  have  not 
paid  special  attention  to  this  to  iafe  intelligently,  they  ought 
to  know  that  there  are  two  kinds  of  Whisky  produced.  Much 
the  larger  part  of  all  the  Whisky  produced  in  the  world  is 
now  made  and  rectified  by  what  is  called  the  ef process  of  con- 
tinuous distillation' — that  is,  after  the  Whisky  is  manufac- 
tured from  the  first  process  of  distillation,  it  is  put  through  a 
rectifying  process  by  mechanical  means,  so  that  when  it  is  fin- 
ished and  brought  out  from  that  process,  it  is  as  perfect  as  it 
will  ever  be,  and  may  be  called  "the  Whisky  produced  by  the 
process  of  continuous  distillation  until  it  is  perfectly  rectified'' 
When  that  Whisky  is  manufactured,  the  last  step  in  the  process 
is  ended. 

It  is  said  in  the  course  of  the  manufacture  of  that  Whisky,  in 
the  course  of  its  rectification,  about  five  per  cent  is  wasted. 
That  is,  in  extracting  the  fusel  oil  and  other  deleterious  ele- 
ments, about  five  per  cent  of  the  actual  bulk  of  the  distilled 
Whisky  is  taken  away,  leaving  the  finished  article  for  the 
trade. 

There  is  another  class  of  Whisky  produced,  known  by  the 
various  names  of  "Bourbon  Whisky,"  "Family  Whiskies," 
"Table  Whiskies;"  but,  by  whatever  name  known,  it  is  a 
Whisky  that  does  not  pass  through  this  process  of  a  special 
continuous  distillation,  so  as  to  become  pure  and  perfect  at  the 
time  of  its  first  manufacture.  But  it  is  carried  up  to  a  certain 
stage  and  stopped,  and  at  that  time  it  is  unfit  for  use;  it  needs 
from  two  to  three  years  of  time  to  ripen.  But  by  simply  lying 
in  casks  the  natural  process  of  purification  brings  that  Whisky 
up  at  the  end  of  three  years  to  a  very  high  degree  of  perfection. 
It  has  done  for  it  by  time  what  the  other  has  done  for  it  ]by 
mechanical  appliances. 

They  say  that  this  manufacturer  who  has  to  wait  three  years 
for  time  to  rectify  and  purify  his  whisky  ought  not  to  be  taxed 
on  the  15  per  cent,  or  10  per  cent,  or  whatever  it  is  that  nature 

47 


does  for  him  in  the  way  of  purifying,  any  more  than  the  other 
on  the  5  per  cent  that  the  machinery  does  in  the  way  of  purify- 
ing. 

Mr.  Barber :  How  does  the  gentleman  reconcile  the  inconsistency 
involved  in  the  levying  of  the  tax  on  the  distilled  spirit  in  its 
perfected  form,  and  the  levying  of  the  tax  upon  the  other 
Whiskies  in  an  unperfected  form? 

Mr.  Willis:  The  force  of  these  suggestions,  Mr.  Chairman,  is 
fully  recognized  by  the  Rectifiers  themselves.  They  make 
no  resistance  to  this  bill.  On  the  contrary,  they  admit  that  it 
is  just  in  all  its  provisions  and  urge  its  passage.  I  hold  in  my 
hand  a  petition  which  I  find  on  my  desk.  This  petition  is  from 
Rectifiers,  Wholesale  Liquor  Dealers,  as  well  as  Distillers,  and 
calls  attention  to  the  law  and  respectfully  asks  for  action.  // 
the  sharp  rivalry  of  business,  nowhere  more  prompt  or  active 
than  in  this  line  of  business,  has  been  laid  aside  before  the  sense 
of  right,  and  all  these  conflicting  interests  agree  upon  this  bill, 
is  it  not  in  evidence  that  there  is  no  just  complaint  that  can  be 
made  against  it? 

Mr.  Butterworth :  There  is  the  same  reason  for  taxing  the  fusel 
oils  and  foreign  substances  in  one  kind  of  Whisky  as  in  another. 
How  is  it  with  the  "Bourbon"  distillers?  When  their  product 
comes  from  the  still  it  is  only  in  the  process  of  manufacture;  it 
is  not  then  completed;  it  is  never  used  in  that  condition,  and  we 
all  know  it.  It  still  contains  the  fusel  oil  and  other  elements 
which  are  poisons  as  deadly  as  prussic  acid.  What  I  insist  upon 
as  justice  to  them  is  that  until  their  product  is  completely  man- 
ufactured the  tax  shall  not  attach  to  it. 

What  else  do  you  propose?  You  say  to  one  class  of  distillers 
that  they  shall  not  be  assessed  except  upon  their  finished  prod- 
uct. Formerly,  as  our  friend  from  Kentucky  (Mr.  Carlisle) 
knows,  this  redistillation  was  never  allowed  in  distilleries.  Dis- 
tillers had  to  turn  out  their  raw  product  and  pay  tax  upon  it. 
Now,  by  the  law  they  are  permitted  to  redistill  their  product, 
and  they  are  enabled  by  the  practice  of  redistillation  to  remove 
from  the  spirit  the  fusel  oil  and  foreign  and  hurtful  substances 
which  the  "Bourbon"  distillers  can  remove  from  their  spirit 
only  by  permitting  it  to  ripen  by  age;1  and  they — that  is  those 
who  redistill — pay  the  tax  on  the  balance — that  is,  the  fin- 


iThis  does  not  mean  that  these  distillers  were  not  at  liberty  to  refine  in  the  same  way  as  the  others,  but 
only  that  they  chose  to  adopt  another  method. 

48 


ished  article.  Now,  how  is  it  with  men  engaged  in  the  other 
branch  of  this  industry.  When  their  spirit  in  process  of  man- 
ufacture runs  from  the  still  it  is  utterly  unfit  for  use.  The 
poisonous  oils  and  other  deleterious  elements  must  be  first  ex- 
pelled. It  contains  then  all  the  hurtful  oils  which  must  be 
expelled  or  separated  from  it  by  some  process.  And  the  only 
process  by  which  they  can  be  expelled  from  this  particular 
article  is  by  ripening.  When  the  manufacture  of  this  article 
is  completed,  then  the  revenue  tax  should  attach  to  it,  and  not 
until  then. 

The  "Bourbon"  distillers  have  been  freighted  down,  simply 
because  you  have  discriminated  against  them.1  All  I  ask  is 
that  they  be  put  upon  the  same  plane  with  others  in  the  same 
line  of  business.  It  does  not  rob  the  revenue;  it  is  equal  and 
exact  justice  between  different  branches  of  this  industry. 


This  debate,  in  the  nation's  forum,  thirty  years  ago,  reduces  to 
shreds  every  contention  of  Doctor  Wiley  and  the  Kentucky  "Straight 
Whisky"  people.  And  the  situation  was  not  then  presented  by  the 
"Straight  Whisky"  advocates  as  something  new,  but  as  a  condition 
well-established  and  well-understood. 

The  very  axioms  and  postulates  of  the  Bill  for  the  relief  of  the 
"Straight  Whisky"  distillers  were: — 

A.  That  the  "continuous"  distillate,  (the  purest  spirit  that 

could  be  made),  was  WHISKY  from  the  moment  it  left 
the  still. 

B.  That  the  distillate  made  by  the  "Straight  Whisky"  dis- 

tillers was  not  WHISKY  in  the  commercial  sense  until 
long  after  it  left  the  still. 

C.  That  the  difference  between  the  two  was  the  fuse  I  oil,  and 

other  possible  impurities  which  were  unnamed. 

D.  That  the  fusel  oil  must  be  removed  by  some  process  in 

order  to  make  commercial  WHISKY. 

E.  That   the   fusel   oil   could   be   removed   from   "Straight 

Whisky"  only  by  age. 

F.  That  the  removal  effected  by  mechanical  means  in  the  one 

case  was  precisely  the  same  as  the  removal  effected  by 
age  in  the  other  case. 


iThis  does  not  mean  that  these  distillers  were  not  at  liberty  to  refine  in  the  same  way  as  the  others,  but 
only  that  they  chose  to  adopt  another  method. 

49 


*  G.     That  WHISKY  was  considered  "pure  and  perfect"  only 

when  the  fusel  oil  had  been  removed. 

H.     That  it  was  unfair  to  tax  the  impurities  which  must  be 
removed  before  the  article  could  be  fit  for  use. 

Yet,  in  the  face  of  this  record,  these  "Straight  Whisky"  people  in 
1909  had  the  amazing  effrontery  to  assert  that  the  "Refined  Whisky" — 
the  "pure  and  perfect"  article,  as  Mr.  Garfield  described  it,  was 
never  WHISKY  at  all:  that  the  only  real  WHISKY  is  the  thing  which 
its  own  friends  told  the  people  of  the  United  States  through  Congress 
was  not  fit  for  use  until  it  had  been  brought  to  the  condition  of  what 
they  now  denounce  as  a  base  imitation. 

They  said  to  President  Taft — "We  admit  that  great  quantities  of 
"this  spirit  have  been  sold  as  WHISKY  for  a  long  time;  but  it  was 
"always  a  deception,  for  the  public  did  not  know  what  it  was" 

Yet,  thirty  years  ago,  the  people  s  representatives  knew  all  about 
it;  and  they  discussed  it  in  the  most  public  place  in  the  country,  in  a 
manner  to  give  it  the  widest  possible  circulation.  And  neither  then, 
nor  until  nearly  thirty  years  later,  did  any  public  man  question  the  ac- 
curacy of  the  statements  made  by  Mr.  Garfield,  Mr.  Butterworth, 
and  others. 

But  Dr.  Wiley  dared  to  tell  Solicitor-General  Bowers  that  the 
refined  WHISKY  had  always  been  recognized  as  a  fraudulent  article  by 
Congress. 

The  advocates  of  Mr.  Carlisle's  bill  in  1880  never  hinted  at  any- 
thing of  the  kind.  Their  whole  argument,  their  whole  plea,  was 
based  upon  the  genuineness  of  the  now  defamed  product.  They  said 
— "Put  us  on  the  same  footing  as  this  other  WHISKY."  How  much 
stronger  would  their  position  have  been  if  they  could  have  said — "This 
base  imitation  is  on  a  better  footing  than  our  genuine  product."  But 
that  they  did  not  say,  because  they  could  not. 

And,  mark  the  infamy  of  the  present  conduct  of  these  Kentucky 
men:  this  attempt  to  outlaw  the  product  of  competitors  to  whose 
magnanimous  support  of  their  appeal  for  relief  thirty  years  ago  Mr. 
Willis  paid  such  eloquent  tribute. 

We  do  not  wonder  that,  for  the  sake  of  the  good  name  of  Ken- 
tucky, where  honor  has  always  held  high  place,  that  prominent  Ken- 
tuckian,  Mr.  John  M.  Atherton,  an  old-time  "Straight  Whisky"  dis- 
tiller, came  forward  to  protest  against  and  contradict  the  false 
claims  of  his  neighbors.  (See  INTRODUCTION.) 

50 


CHAPTER  XII 
Doctor  Wiley  as  a  Witness  at  the  Official  Enquiry 

This  is  a  chapter  which  should  be  read  with  close  attention.  Of 
itself,  it  is  convincing  proof  of  the  Doctor's  utter  unfitness  to  pro- 
nounce judgment  on  the  subject  of  Whisky. 

(See,  also,  two  most  interesting  fragments  of  his  testimony,  and 
his  delicious  essay  on  "The  busy  bee  as  a  manufacturer,  and  Whisky 
a  natural  product,"  Chapter  III :  his  questioning  of  Prof.  Remington, 
Prof.  Ladd  and  Mr.  Adams,  Chapter  XIII :  his  cross-examination  of 
Prof.  Sadtler  and  Mr.  Schidrowitz,  Chapter  XV:  extracts  from  his 
testimony  in  another  case,  Chapter  XVI.) 


Note  the  wonderful  difference  between  Doctor  Wiley's  prompt 
and  emphatic  replies  when  expressing  his  antagonism  to  REFINED  WHIS- 
KY, or  his  championship  of  STRAIGHT  WHISKY,  ( See  questions  i  to  7 ; 
51,  52,  56  to  58,  1 1 8,  119),  and  his  evasive  answers  to  questions  test- 
ing the  soundness  of  his  position,  (See  8  to  13,  38  to  41,  60,  61,  80  to 
82,  84,  85,  103  to  105,  125,  126). 

Note  the  obtrusion  of  his  opposition  in  answer  (i):  note  the 
vehemence  of  the  concluding  part  of  answer  (7). 

Mark  his  invincible  hostility  to  REFINED  WHISKY  under  all  con- 
ditions. He  could  not  agree  that  every  public  object  would  be  served 
if  his  kind  of  whisky  was  distinguished  by  the  name  STRAIGHT  WHISKY 
— the  name  its  own  makers  had  chosen  for  it.  He  would  not  be  satis- 
fied even  if  his  kind  of  whisky  was  given  the  exclusive  use  of  the  un- 
qualified name  WHISKY,  and  the  Refined  Whisky  was  labelled — 
"Whisky  rectified  and  redistilled  so  as  to  remove  all  the  Fusel  Oil." 

The  removal  of  the  Fusel  Oil  was  his  sole  objection  to  REFINED 
WHISKY,  and  the  name  suggested  would  have  told  the  public  all  about 
it:  but  Doctor  Wiley  would  not  trust  the  people  to  buy  it  on  their  own 
judgment,  even  then.  He  said  they  would  understand  "rectified"  to 
mean  "improved." 

51 


True,  he  didn't  know  himself  whether  it  was  improved  or  not: 
true,  the  word  "rectified"  had  had  governmental  sanction  for  a  very 
long  time:  but  Doctor  Wiley  felt  compelled  to  stand  between  the 
public  and  governmental  terms.  (See  51  to  58). 

Contrast  this  with  the  Doctor's  indifference  to  the  public  miscon- 
ception regarding  STRAIGHT  WHISKY,  which  had  been  for  many  long 
years  erroneously  represented,  and  by  Doctor  Wiley  himself,  as  free 
from  Fusel  Oil.  He  manifested  no  anxiety  to  correct  that  misinforma- 
tion. 

Observe  the  extraordinary  difference  between  what  Doctor  Wiley 
said  to  the  Congressional  Committee  and  what  he  told  the  Solicitor- 
General.  He  recommended  that  Congress  should  put  the  different 
kinds  of  Whisky  on  the  same  footing:  Congress  was  led  to  believe 
that  when  the  Pure  Food  Law  came  to  be  administered  Doctor  Wiley 
would  be  of  the  same  mind:  but  he  insists  here  that  the  REFINED 
WHISKY  shall  be  driven  out  of  the  ranks  of  WHISKY  altogether.  (See 
46  to  50,  93  to  95,  130,  131). 

Doctor  Wiley  was  informed  by  a  member  of  the  Committee  that 
numerous  interested  parties  were  apprehensive  that  the  law  might 
imply  something  too  favorable  to  STRAIGHT  WHISKY  and  damaging  to 

REFINED  WHISKY. 

Did  he  tell  the  Committee  that  there  were  good  grounds  for  that 
apprehension?  Did  he  give  that  Committee  the  slightest  intimation 
that  all  his  influence  and  authority  as  Chief  Government  Chemist 
would  be  for  one  whisky  and  against  the  other  ?  By  no  means ;  he  as- 
sured the  Committee  that  his  attitude  was  that  of  "a  fair  field  and  no 
favor." 

What,  then,  was  Doctor  Wiley's  clear  duty  when  he  found  that  his 
theories  with  regard  to  Whisky  had  undergone  a  complete  and  sudden 
change  ?  Should  he  not  have  soliloquized  thus — 

"It  is  not  right  that  I  should  apply  my  new  convictions 
"to  the  carrying  out  of  a  law  which  Congress  passed  with 
"my  former  and  entirely  different  convictions  in  mind. 
"This  is  a  very  serious  matter.  Tens  of  millions  of  dol- 
lars invested  in  Whisky  such  as  I  approved  of  until  now, 
"will  be  jeopardized  if  I  act  upon  my  present  theories.  As 

52 


"I  told  the  Congressional  Committee,  there  is  no  question 
"of  wholesomeness:  it  is,  at  most,  only  a  question  of  name, 
" which  cannot  be  important  enough  to  justify  the  imperil- 
ling of  enormous  interests  until  I  am  quite  sure  that  I 
"am  quite  right  this  time.  I  will  do  nothing  before  the 
"law  and  the  facts  have  been  settled  beyond  all  dispute." 

And  if,  finally,  it  had  been  made  clear  that  the  law  did  really  dis- 
criminate against  REFINED  WHISKY,  would  not  one  expect  Doctor 
Wiley  to  have  such  thoughts  as  these — 

"/  am  largely  responsible  for  this  unfortunate  situation. 
"As  Chief  Government  Chemist  I  have  insisted  for  many 
"years  that  the  Fusel  Oil  must  be  eliminated  to  make 
"Whisky  fit  for  consumption.  The  STRAIGHT  WHISKY 
"people  have  not  eliminated  it,  though  I  and  they  thought 
"and  said  that  they  did.  These  people  do  eliminate  it, 
"and,  as  we  now  know,  in  the  only  way  possible. 
"It  is  unfortunate  that  I,  the  Chief  Chemist  of  this  great 
"nation,  supposed  to  be  deeply  versed  in  food  questions, 
"have  had  to  reverse  all  my  former  ideas  on  Whisky  at  this 
"late  day,  which,  however,  must  be  endured :  but  I  cannot 
"excuse  myself  for  having  all  these  years  been  under  the 
ftfalse  impression  that  age  removed  Fusel  Oil,  when  a 
"simple  experiment  would  have  shown  me  my  error.  I 
"have  certainly  been  most  negligent^  and  I  must  now  do  all 
"I  can  to  avoid  injury  to  innocent  people  through  my  care- 
"lessness.  It  would  be  the  very  depth  of  irony  if  those 
"who  have  immense  stocks  of  Whisky  free  from  Fusel  Oil 
"should  now  suffer,  and  those  whose  Whisky  I  should  have 
"condemned  but  yesterday,  because  it  is  not  free  from  Fusel 
"Oil,  should  benefit  at  their  expense.  Ample  time  should 
"be  given  the  REFINED  WHISKY  people  to  accommodate 
"themselves  to  my  new  theories.  The  public  are  not  being 
"hurt.  Ninety-five  per  cent  of  them  are  well  satisfied  with 
"the  REFINED  WHISKY.  It  will  take  quite  a  long  time  to 
"make  known  to  them  the  great  mistake  I  labored  under  so 
"long.  I  cannot  say  what  they  will  do  when  they  know 
"that  the  Fusel  Oil  is  not  removed  from  STRAIGHT  WHIS- 
"KY.  I  shall  use  my  influence  to  prevent  any  legal  inter- 
"ference  with  the  business  until  the  public  know  the  truth 

53 


*  "and  show  what  effect  it  has  upon  their  minds.  And  mean- 
"while  both  the  REFINED  WHISKY  makers  and  the 
"STRAIGHT  WHISKY  makers  will  have  the  opportunity  of 
"adapting  themselves  to  the  trend  of  public  opinion." 

Mark  this  fact.  Although  it  does  not  appear  in  the  testimony 
quoted,  (for  space  forbids  the  inclusion  of  much  which  we  wish  the 
public  could  read),  Doctor  Wiley  insisted  that  the  Fusel  Oil  must 
not  be  put  back  into  the  Whisky.  He  maintained  that  it  made  all  the 
difference  in  the  world  how  it  got  there.  If  the  filthy  stuff  is  allowed 
to  come  through  the  still,  the  Doctor  says  it  is  all  right;  if  it  had  been 
taken  out  by  ageing,  the  Doctor  thought  that  would  be  proper.  But 
to  take  it  out  by  distillation,  or  to  put  it  back  after  it  has  been  taken 
out,  the  Doctor  says  is  fatal.  So,  according  to  the  Doctor,  there  is  no 
possibility  of  converting  the  immense  stocks  of  REFINED  WHISKY  into 
the  UNREFINED  WHISKY  which  he  now  approves  of. 

The  chemists  admit  that  they  cannot  tell  whether  the  Fusel  Oil 
got  in  through  the  still  or  was  put  in  afterward.  But  a  little  prac- 
tical difficulty  of  that  kind  doesn't  affect  their  judgment.  It  would, 
of  course,  be  the  simplest  thing  for  the  Government  to  have  an  army  of 
men  watching  every  gallon  of  whisky  made  in  the  world,  and  through 
all  its  travels  between  the  distiller  and  the  consumer — for  the  Fusel 
Oil  might  be  put  in  at  any  time ;  and  any  gallon  of  whisky  made  abroad 
may  find  its  way  into  the  United  States. 

And,  to  show  what  a  very  complex  matter  the  Whisky  trade 
is,  consider  the  Doctor's  views  as  to  coloring.  If  you  char  a  barrel 
with  the  express  object  of  making  wood  caramel,  and  then  put  in  the 
whisky,  with  the  express  object  of  having  it  extract  that  color,  that 
is  quite  right.  But  if  you  put  sugar  caramel  into  the  whisky,  you  at 
once  destroy  it  as  WHISKY — it  straightway  becomes  a  base  imitation. 
(See  76  to  89). 

Never  having  been  Chemists,  but  only  practical  distillers,  trying 
for  fifty  odd  years  to  understand  the  tastes  and  prejudices  of  the 
public,  we  had  supposed  that  if  a  consumer  wanted  Fusel  Oil  in  his 
Whisky  he  didn't  care  which  way  it  got  there;  that  if  he  wanted  the 
Fusel  Oil  taken  out,  he  was  content  to  leave  the  method  of  removing 
it  to  us.  So  with  color :  we  supposed  that  consumers  who  expected  a 
light  color  or  a  dark  color,  as  the  case  might  be,  were  not  worrying 

54 


themselves  about  wood  caramel  or  sugar  caramel:  and  so  we  have 
gone  on  our  way,  doing  our  best  according  to  our  conception  of  the 
public  demand,  our  experience  and  our  regard  for  our  good  name. 

But,  now,  of  course,  we  see  our  mistake.  How  could  we  fail  to 
see  it  in  the  light  of  Doctor  Wiley's  lucid,  logical  and  consistent  tes- 
timony ? 

What  manufacturer  would  desire  to  do  what  was  never  done  by 
Doctor  Wiley's  father  or  grandfather?  (See  89). 

We  call  attention  to  Doctor  Wiley's  version  of  the  consumer's 
idea  of  whisky.  (See  2).  Here,  again,  our  fifty  years'  experience 
fails  us.  We  have  talked  Whisky  with  thousands  of  consumers,  but 
never  did  one  of  them  reveal  to  us  any  familiarity  with  "the  dis- 
tinctive properties  which  are  produced  during  fermentation,"  with 
the  "ordinary  temperatures  of  distillation,"  with  the  "chemical 
changes  in  the  original  constituents."  Which  only  goes  to  show  how 
much  less  one  is  likely  to  know  of  the  business  to  which  he  gives  all  his 
time,  than  can  be  picked  up  by  a  chemist  who  has  a  thousand  and  one 
things  to  think  about. 

And  again  our  experience  differs  from  Doctor  Wiley's.  We 
have  found  that  nearly  every  consumer  has  an  idea  what  Fusel  Oil  is: 
that  it  is  very  apt  to  exist  in  Whisky:  that  he  wishes  particularly  to 
avoid  it — wherefore,  we  have  always  been  particular  to  remove  it. 

Doctor  Wiley's  superior  knowledge  of  this  matter  is  expressed  in 
answers  3  to  5- 

Doctor  Wiley's  statement  to  the  Senate  Committee  in  1904  should 
not  be  overlooked — "THE  MANUFACTURE  OF  STRAIGHT  WHISKY  is 

Conditioned  UPON  THE  OXIDATION  OF  THESE  OILS  (fusel  Oils)  INTO 
THE  AROMATIC  SUBSTANCES  OF  WHICH  I  HAVE  SPOKEN."  (See  43). 

Mark  the  word  "conditioned."  If  the  Doctor  used  that  word  ad- 
visedly, what  other  interpretation  of  it  is  there  than  this — that  if  one 
had  said  to  him — "Here  is  a  spirit  in  which  the  Fusel  Oil  remains 
intact:  is  it  WHISKY?"  the  Doctor  would  have  been  bound  to  answer 

—"NO?"1 

IWe  simply  hold  Doctor  Wiley  to  the  logic  of  his  own  statement.  We  have  always  maintained,  as  Pres- 
ident Taft  finds  upon  the  evidence,  that  any  potable  grain  spirit  is  WHISKY.  The  Fusel  Oil  affects  only  its 
purity. 

55 


At  the  same  time,  Doctor  Wiley  said  of  the  makers  of  STRAIGHT 
WHISKY  and  the  makers  of  BLENDED  WHISKY — "they  use  the  same 
Alcohol."  (See. 47).  He  admits  that  by  "Blended  Whisky"  he  then 
meant  a  mixture  of  "Straight  Whisky"  and  "Neutral  Spirit."  (See 
127  to  129). 

"Same"  means  "identical."  Yet  the  Doctor  now  maintains  that 
the  alcohols  are  not  even  "like  substances" — though  "like"  means  only 
"nearly  identical." 

For  a  scientific  man,  educated  to  the  importance  of  exact  terms, 
Doctor  Wiley  is  at  times  singularly  loose  in  his  language.  For 
an  example  of  this,  see  answers  63  to  65.  What  an  immense  differ- 
ence there  is  between  "imitation  Whisky"  and  "imitation  Bourbon 
Whisky"  is  obvious;  the  one  is  not  WHISKY  at  all — the  other  may  be 
one  kind  of  Whisky  made  to  appear  like  another  kind  of  Whisky. 
"Imitation  Silver"  is  not  silver;  an  "imitation  silver  dollar"  may  be 
silver,  and  may  have  a  metallic  value  greater  than  that  of  the  real 
silver  dollar. 

And  who  but  a  great  scientist,  and  what  great  scientist  except  Doc- 
tor Wiley,  could  have  conceived  the  dazzlingly  brilliant  idea  of  mak- 
ing an  imitation  out  of  the  genuine  article  ? — which  the  Doctor  emitted 
in  Answer  63. 

It  had  been  commonly  supposed  that  imitators  used  cheap  substi- 
tutes, with  the  unholy  purpose  of  making  unfair  profits.     But  that 
was  all  a  mistake :  for  this  is  Doctor  Wiley's  formula- 
Take  WHISKY:  rectify  and  redistil  it,  at  considerable  ex- 
pense and  some  loss  of  raw  material :  you  then  have  IMITA- 
TION WHISKY.    If  you  are  extremely  clever  and  extremely 
lucky,  you  may  manage  to  sell  it  at  the  price  of  genuine 
WHISKY:  in  which  case,  you  will  have  lost  only  your  time 
and  what  it  cost  you  to  make  the  transformation. 

A  GREAT  IDEA,  ISN*T  IT? 

We  do  not  wish  the  reader  to  fail  to  appreciate  Doctor  Wiley's 
talent  for  "special  pleading,"  as  evidenced  by  answers  69  to  75. 

We  think  the  reader  will  agree  with  us  that  Doctor  Wiley's  tes- 
timony shows  a  remarkable  attitude  on  the  part  of  a  Government  of- 
ficer at  a  Governmental  enquiry.  His  prejudice  is  unmistakable.  So, 

56 


also,  is  his  scanty  knowledge  of  the  practical  side  of  the  question,  as 
exhibited  by  answers  14  to  20,  55,  123  and  124.  He  likewise 
showed  very  defective  recollection  of  many  matters  which  it  was 
reasonable  to  expect  he  would  clearly  remember.  ( See  answers  28  to 
32,38  to  41). 

And,  finally,  we  draw  attention  to  Doctor  Wiley's  answer  to 
question  in.  He  did  not  know  of  "anything  that  had  ever  been 
practiced  that  was  worse"  than  the  sale  of  the  purest  form  of  grain 
spirits  under  the  name  WHISKY. 

Is  that  not  a  remarkable  statement  to  come  from  the  Chief  Food 
Official  of  the  United  States  ? 

Had  Doctor  Wiley  no  knowledge  of  the  contaminated  milk  which 
contributes  so  largely  to  the  infant  mortality  of  the  country?  Had 
he  no  knowledge  of  the  adulteration  of  the  necessary  daily  food  supply 
of  the  poor?  Was  he  ignorant  of  the  putrid  and  poisonous  substances 
of  which  so  much  has  been  heard  ?  Where  was  he  when  the  country 
was  ringing  with  the  story  of  rotten  beef  sent  to  American  troops  in 
Cuba? 

Why  this  violent  language  with  regard  to  an  article  which  Doctor 
Wiley  knew  and  admitted  to  be  perfectly  wholesome,  and  about 
which  he  could  say  nothing  worse  than  that  it  was  WHISKY  MINUS 
FUSEL  OIL? 

Is  a  man  who  can  so  exaggerate  a  safe  guide  for  the  people  in  fram- 
ing their  Food  Laws:  has  he  the  judicial  temperament  to  qualify  him 
to  deal  with  enormous  business  interests  ?  Was  not  LESLIE'S  WEEKLY 
right  when  it  said — 

"IT    IS    HIGH    TIME    THAT    DOCTOR    WILEY    SHOULD    BE 
TAKEN  AT   HIS  Real,   RATHER  THAN   HIS  Face,  VALUE." 


Mr.  McCabe:    Did  you  ever  order  neutral  spirits,  diluted  or 
undiluted  ? 

Doctor  Wiley:     No,  sir;  /  should  not  have  ordered  it  for 

Whisky  if  I  had. 

Mr.  Maxwell :    I  move  that  that  be  struck  out. 
The  Solicitor-General :    Yes;  that  may  go  out. 

57 


*2.      Mr.  McCabe :    And  what  did  you  gather  was  the  consumer's 

idea  of  WHISKY? 

Doctor  Wiley :  The  consumer's  idea  of  WHISKY  is  a  distillate 
of  grain,  which  contains  the  distinctive  properties  derived 
from  grain  itself,  which  are  produced  during  fermentation, 
which  pass  over  at  the  ordinary  temperatures  of  distillation, 
and  in  addition  to  that,  those  substances  which  arise  during 
storage  by  chemical  changes  in  the  original  constituents  and 
which  are  added  to  the  whisky  by  the  extracts  coming  from 
the  package. 

3.  Mr.  McCabe:     Did  you  find  that  the  consumer  believed  that 

Whisky  should  contain  some  fusel  oil,  or  that  it  should  be 
free  from  fusel  oil? 

Doctor  Wiley :  Most  of  them  had  no  idea  as  to  what  fusel  oil 
is  or  where  it  exists. 

4.  Mr.  McCabe:    Never  heard  of  it? 

Doctor  Wiley:  They  may  have  heard  of  it,  but  they  didnt 
know  anything  about  it. 

5.  Mr.  McCabe:    Did  they  believe  it  should  be  in  Whisky? 
Doctor  Wiley:    If  it  were  one  of  those  things  produced  in  the 

Whisky,  they  did.  They  believed  that  it  should  contain  all 
those  things.  They  didn't  know  anything  about  the  name 
fusel  oil,  or  the  names  of  any  of  these  things. 

6.  Mr.  Carlisle :    The  Doctor  has  been  asked  as  to  what  the  con- 

sumer considered  WHISKY.  Now,  I  want  to  ask  the  Doctor 
a  question  as  to  whether  this  thing  which  we  have  been  talk- 
ing about  so  much  is  WHISKY. 

Doctor  Wiley:  My  experience  with  the  trade,  the  manufac- 
turers, the  dealers,  and  the  consumers,  leads  me  to  the  belief, 
with  the  most  positive  conviction,  that  the  consumer  does  not 
consider  a  neutral  spirit,  practically  as  free  of  every  foreign 
substance  as  can  be  made,  reduced  to  proof,  with  or  with- 
out coloring  and  flavoring,  as  WHISKY  in  any  sense  of  that 
word. 

7.  Mr.  Carlisle :    I  will  ask  him  whether,  as  a  chemist,  this  prod- 

uct is  the  kind  of  WHISKY  which  he  says  the  manufacturers 
and  the  consumers  regard  as  WHISKY. 

58 


Doctor  Wiley :  As  a  chemist,  and  as  expressing  the  consensus 
of  opinion  of  chemists  in  general — chemists  with  whom  I  am 
very  familiar  in  large  numbers — and  expressing  my  opinion,  I 
would  say  that  this  material  which  I  have  just  described  is 
not  Whisky  and  never  has  been  and  never  will  be  Whisky. 

8.  Mr.  Hough :    Your  definition  of  WHISKY  excludes  any  rectifi- 

cation which  would  eliminate  any  of  these  congeners,  does  it  ? 
Doctor  Wiley:     My  definition  of  WHISKY  includes  exactly 
what  I  said  it  did. 

9.  Mr.  Hough:     Does  your  definition  of  WHISKY  exclude  any 

rectification  that  would  eliminate  any  of  these  congeners  ? 
Doctor  Wiley :    It  excludes  nothing  that  comes  in  the  distillate 
at  the  ordinary  temperature  of  distillation,  as  practiced  by 
Whisky  Makers. 

10.  Mr.  Hough:    Can  you  not  answer  that  question?    Does  it  ex- 

clude any  rectification  which  would  have  the  effect  of  elim- 
inating any  of  these  congeners,  or  higher  alcohols,  or  fusel 
oils,  or  whatever  you  wish  to  call  them? 

Doctor  Wiley :    I  can  better  say  what  it  includes. 

The  Solicitor-General:    NO,  HE  ASKS  YOU  WHAT  IT  Excludes. 

Doctor  Wiley:  It  excludes  nothing  which  is  brought  over  at 
the  ordinary  temperatures  of  distillation  as  practiced  in  the 
manufacture  of  WHISKY. 

The  Solicitor-General :  YOU  HAVE  NOT  ANSWERED  THE  QUES- 
TION YET,  I  THINK. 

11.  Mr.  Hough:     Your  expression,  "the  ordinary  temperature  of 

distillation,"  as  I  understand  you  to  explain  it,  excludes  the 
first  run,  which  you  say  goes  over  at  a  different  temperature 
from  that  which  3^011  have  in  mind,  and  it  excludes  the  last 
run,  which  is  at  a  different  temperature  from  that  which  you 
have  in  mind? 

Doctor  Wiley :  No ;  it  does  not  exclude  them ;  they  are  thrown 
back. 

12.  Mr.  Hough:    I  will  come  to  that  in  a  moment.     But  they  are 

excluded  at  that  time  ? 

Doctor  Wiley :  They  are  not  excluded  in  the  final  product.  / 
cannot  go  into  every  step  of  distillation. 

59 


*  13-      Mr.  Hough:    You  know  exactly  what  I  am  trying  to  get  at. 

The  Solicitor-General:     i  THINK  THE  QUESTION  MUST  BE 

ANSWERED,  IF  YOU  UNDERSTAND  IT. 

Doctor  Wiley:    i  UNDERSTAND  IT,  AND  i  WILL  SAY  THAT  IT 

INCLUDES  EVERYTHING  FINALLY. 

14.  Mr.  Hough:  Well,  now,  how  much  of  what  ha*  gone  into 

vapor  and  has  become  condensed — how  much  expressed  in 
percentage  of  the  total — is  first  cut  out  to  be  returned  to  the 
still? 
Doctor  Wiley :    I  do  not  know.    I  am  not  a  distiller. 

15.  Mr.  Hough:    Have  you  any  idea  as  to  how  much? 

Doctor  Wiley:     I  have  simply  an  idea  from  cursory  observa- 
tion ;  very  little  idea. 

1 6.  Mr.  Hough :    How  much  or  what  percentage  is  excluded  in  the 

last  run  which  you  exclude? 
Doctor  Wiley :  I  do  not  know. 

17.  Mr.  Hough:    What  other  congeners  are  included  in  the  first 

run,  other  than  ethyl  alcohol  ? 

Doctor  Wiley:    I  do  not  know.    I  assume  that  they  are  prob- 
ably all  there. 

1 8.  Mr.  Hough:    What  percentage  of  the  congeners  is  in  the  last 

of  the  run? 

Doctor  Wiley:    A  very  small  percentage,  I  think,  compared 
with  the  first  of  the  run. 

19.  Mr.  Hough:    What  are  the  congeners  in  there  then? 
Doctor  Wiley:    They  are  probably  all  there  in  small  propor- 
tions. 

20.  Mr.  Hough:    What  other  congeners  are  there  which  you  do 

not  include  under  the  term  "fusel  oil?" 

Doctor  Wiley:     I  suppose  there  are  a  few  ethers  there,  and 
aldehydes  and  acids — especially  acids. 

21.  The  Solicitor-General:     Do  not  "Straight  Whiskies"  vary  in 

the  amount  of  their  congeners  ? 
Doctor  Wiley:    Yes. 

60 


22.  The  Solicitor-General:     Where  am  I  to  draw  the  line,  if  I 

have  to  attack  that  problem  ? 

Doctor  Wiley:  Just  here,  Mr.  Solicitor.  Whenever  Whis- 
ky is  made  of  properly  selected  grain,  with  the  precautions 
which  a  manufacturer  should  take,  which  is  distilled  in  such 
a  way  as  to  retain  the  flavors  of  the  grain,  the  substances 
produced  during  fermentation,  which  are  congeneric  with 
ethyl  alcohol,  go  off  at  the  ordinary  temperatures  of  distilla- 
tion  THAT  IS  WHISKY. 

23.  The  Solicitor-General:     Well,  the  "ordinary  temperature  of 

distillation"  will  vary  with  distilleries? 

Doctor  Wiley:  But  I  include  that.  If  one  man  runs  it  140 
and  another  130,  I  would  not  deny  either  of  them  the  use 
of  the  word  WHISKY;  or  even  if  he  runs  it  150.  That  is  the 
ordinary  temperature. 

24.  The  Solicitor-General :    But  the  "ordinary  temperature  of  dis- 

tillation" varies  with  different  countries? 
Doctor  Wiley:    Yes,  and  I  do  not  deny  them  the  use  of  the 
word  WHISKY. 

25.  The   Solicitor-General:     And  the  "ordinary  temperature  of 

distillation"  varies  with  the  same  distillery  from  day  to  day, 
does  it  not? 

Doctor  Wiley:  Hardly.  He  usually  tries  to  bring  them  off  at 
the  same  temperature. 

26.  The  Solicitor-General:    Well,  they  vary  with  the  same  distil- 

lery, as  a  distiller  uses  varying  mashes? 

Doctor  Wiley:  Yes.  I  think  the  rule  is  a  perfectly  easy  one 
to  find. 

The  Solicitor-General :  I  WISH  YOU  WOULD  MAKE  IT  EASY  TO 
ME. 

27.  Mr.  Hough :    When  the  matter  of  standards  was  first  taken  up, 

there  was  a  maximum  limit  suggested  for  fusel  oil,  was  there 
not,  of  0.25  ? 

Doctor  Wiley:    I  believe  there  was. 

28.  Mr.  Hough :    There  was  no  minimum  limit  ? 
Doctor  Wiley:    I  cannot  remember. 

61 


29-     Mr.  Hough:     The  standards  first  suggested.     That  was  by 

Doctor  Crampton,  was  it  not  ? 
Doctor  Wiley:    It  may  have  been.    /  do  not  remember  that. 

30.  Mr.  Hough:    Do  you  not  recollect  that? 

Doctor  Wiley :  I  recollect  there  were  such  things,  but  if  you  ask 
me  what  they  were,  I  cannot  remember  such  things,  Mr.  So- 
licitor. 

31.  Mr.  Hough:    Doctor  Crampton  was  the  first  referee  on  the 

subject,  was  he  not? 
Doctor  Wiley :    I  think  he  was. 

32.  Mr.  Hough :    And  his  ideas  were,  I  presume,  the  basis  of  the 

statement  in  your  suggestion  to  importers,  of  there  being  a 
maximum  limit  of  0.25  of  fusel  oil  ? 
Doctor  Wiley :    I  could  not  say  in  regard  to  that. 

33.  Mr.  Hough :    I  will  find  out  in  a  minute.    I  think  it  has  already 

been  introduced  in  evidence. 

(Mr.  Hough  exhibited  an  article  to  Doctor  Wiley,  which 

Doctor  Wiley  glanced  over. ) 

Mr.  Hough:     (Apparently  reading) 

Known  as  Food  Inspection  Decisions,  i  to  25,  signed  by  Doc- 
tor Wiley,  Chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Chemistry,  on  page  14,  un- 
der the  head  of  WHISKY. 

The  content  of  fusel  oils  should  not  exceed  0.25%. 
That  was  your  statement,  was  it  not? 

Doctor  Wiley :    Yes,  sir. 

34.  Mr.  Hough:    And  at  that  time  no  minimum  limit  was  sug- 

gested ? 
Doctor  Wiley:    There  is  none  there. 

35.  Mr.  Hough:    Well,  in  any  other  connection  did  you  ever  sug- 

gest a  minimum  limit  ? 
Doctor  Wiley:    In  later — 

36.  Mr.  Hough:     (Interrupting)     At  that  time? 
Doctor  Wiley:    I  think  not  at  that  time. 

62 


37-     Mr.  Hough:    You  have  stated,  have  you  not,  in  the  Pure  Food 
discussions,  that  the  prime  object  of  the  proposed  legislation 
was  to  distinguish  between  the  different  characters  of  Whis- 
ky, so  that  the  consumer  would  know  what  he  was  getting? 
Doctor  Wiley :    Yes ;  and  I  still  think  so. 

38.  Mr.  Hough:    And  at  that  time  you  suggested  the  words  "Rec- 

tified Whisky,"  for  a  distilled  spirit  from  grain,  from  which 
practically  all,  or  all,  or  as  much  as  possible,  of  the  congeners 
had  been  removed  by  distillation  or  rectification,  did  you  not? 
Doctor  Wiley:  /  could  not  tell  without  looking  at  the  discus- 
sions. 

39.  Mr.  Hough :    Have  you  no  independent  recollection  as  to  what 

you  said  ? 

Doctor  Wiley:  I  could  not  recollect  all  the  discussions  I  had 
before  the  committees  of  Congress.  I  have  been  appearing 
before  them  for  twenty-five  years. 

40.  Mr.  Hough :  ^Do  you  recollect  independently  of  what  you  may 

have  said  before  the  committee,  that  that  was  your  view  at 
that  time? 
Doctor  Wiley :    /  cannot  recall. 

41.  Mr.  Hough:    Can  you  say  that  it  was  not  your  view? 
Doctor  Wiley:     I  would  not  say  it  was  not  my  view;  no.    I 

HAVE  CHANGED  MY  VIEWS  A  GREAT  MANY  TIMES  IN  THE 
PAST  FEW  YEARS. 

42.  Mr.  Hough:    Did  you  state  this  before  the  Senate  Committee 

on  Manufactures,  at  the  hearing  of  February  4,  1904? 
If  you  take  an  unfractionate  distillate,  you  find  water, 
ethyl  alcohol,  and  these  other  alcohols  known  as  fusel  oil, 
coming  over  in  the  distillate.  *  *  *  If  a  mixture  of  these 
bodies,  these  mixed  alcohols,  is  subjected  at  a  proper  tem- 
perature to  the  action  of  natural  oxidizing  agents  which 
are  present  when  a  proper  temperature  is  secured  in  a 
proper  package,  a  change  takes  place  in  these  alcohols  of  the 
fusel  oil  series.  They  become  oxidized;  they  form  what 
are  called  ethers,  aromatic  substances,  which  give  to  a 
naturally  aged  whisky  its  aroma  and  mostly  its  flavor. 

You  stated  that  then,  did  you  ? 
Doctor  Wiley :    Yes,  sir. 

63 


43-      Mr.  Hough:    Again: 

It  is  usually  supposed  that  with  the  amount  of  fusel  oil  or- 
dinarily produced,  about  four  years  is  sufficient  to  convert 
it  mostly  into  these  aromatic  ethers.  *  *  *  You  can 
only  tell  by  examining  it  just  how  long  it  does  take,  AND 

THE      MANUFACTURE       OF       NATURAL       OR       SO-CALLED 

"STRAIGHT  WHISKY,"  is  Conditioned  UPON  THE  OXIDA- 
TION OF  THESE  OILS  TO  THE  AROMATIC  SUBSTANCES  OF 
WHICH  I  HAVE  SPOKEN. 

You  stated  that  then,  did  you  ? 
Doctor  Wiley:    Yes,  sir. 

44.  Mr.Hough:    You  were,  of  course,  a  part  of  the  whole  body  of 

the  public  at  that  time,  were  you  not  ? 
Doctor  Wiley :    Yes,  sir. 

45.  Mr.  Hough :  And  your  views  at  that  time  might  be  regarded  as 

fairly  expressive  of  the  general  view  of  the  public  which  had 
given  any  attention  to  the  subject  of  WHISKY;  would  you  not 
say  so? 

Doctor  Wiley:    I  think  so;  yes,  sir;  just  as  they  would  be  to- 
day. 

46.  Mr.Hough:     (Reading  further) 

The  man  who  makes  old-fashioned  Whisky  shall  so  label 
and  tag  it  that  the  people  may  know  it  is  that  kind  of 
Whisky ,  and  has  been  made  in  that  way,  and  the  man  who 
makes  a  compounded  or  blended  Whisky  is  willing  to  put 
on  the  bottles  the  statement  that  it  was  made  in  that  way. 
Then  the  men  may  go  on  to  the  market  on  equal  terms. 

Then  again: 

When  Whisky  is  bottled  in  bond  there  is  no  guarantee  in 
the  Government  stamp  that  it  is  wholesome.  It  may  be, 
as  Mr.  Hough  says,  a  very  unwholesome  article.  The 
Government  does  not  guarantee  the  purity. 

Mr.  Hough :    That  was  the  statement  you  made  at  that  time, 

was  it  not? 
Doctor  Wiley :    That  was  the  statement  I  made,  but  it  was  not 

quite  full  enough. 

64 


47-      Mr.  Hough:  (Reading  further) 

Senator  McCumber :    How  can  a  blend  be  sold  any  cheap- 
er, except  on  account  of  the  age,  and  the  loss  in  holding 
the  bonded  goods  a  great  length  of  time  ? 
Doctor  Wiley:     That  is  the  only  advantage  which  they 
have. 

Senator  McCumber:  That  is  the  only  advantage? 
Doctor  Wiley:  They  pay  the  same  tax,  exactly,  to  the 
Government.  They  use  the  same  alcohol  distilled  from 
grain.  *  *  *  Now,  what  I  want,  and  what  I  believe 
we  all  want,  is  that  the  law  shall  require  such  a  distinction 
that  the  purchaser  may  know  which  kind  of  whisky  he  is 
getting,  and  then  let  each  of  the  products  stand  upon  its 
merits. 

Mr.  Hough :  Am  I  correct  in  thinking  that  you  do  not  think 
the  great  object  to  be  attained  by  pure-food  legislation  would 
be  accomplished  by  marking  those  so  that  the  public  could 
understand  that  one  was  one  kind  of  whisky  and  the  other 
another  kind  of  whisky  f 

Doctor  Wiley:  That  is  all  I  claim;  THAT  ONE  SHOULD  BE 
MARKED  SPURIOUS,  IMITATION  OR  COMPOUND,  as  the  law  re- 
quires  it  to  be. 

48.  Mr.    Hough:    But   you    do   not    regard   spurious   whisky    as 

WHISKY? 

Doctor  Wiley:  /  say  if  it  is  spurious  it  should  be  marked 
spurious. 

49.  Mr.    Hough:     You  would   not  say   that   an    imitation   is   a 

WHISKY  ? 

Doctor  Wiley:  Yes;  it  is  an  imitation.  //  it  is  an  imitation  it 
should  be  marked  "imitation." 

50.  Mr.  Hough :     But  you  would  not  say  a  thing  that  had  to  be 

marked  "spurious"  or  "imitation"  was  going  on  to  the  mar- 
ket? 

Doctor  Wiley :  If  those  are  proper  terms  under  the  food  law  to 
use  to  distinguish  these  different  kinds  of  beverages,  I  have 
certainly  no  objection  to  their  manufacture  and  sale  under  the 
term  WHISKY,  if  they  are  prefixed  by  the  proper  word. 

65 


51.  Mr.  Hough:  Would  you  not  say  that  all    the  object  to  be  ob- 

tained by  the  law  would  be  accomplished  if  the  old  "Straight 
Whiskies'*'  were  called  STRAIGHT  WHISKY  and  the  others 
WHISKY? 

Doctor  Wiley :  No,  sir ;  the  real  Whisky  has  the  right  to  the 
name  always,  without  any  limitation. 

52.  Mr.  Hough:    Then,  suppose  the  word  WHISKY  would  apply 

only  to  the  "Straight  Whisky,"  and  the  other  kind  of  Whisky, 
from  which  the  congeners  had  been  removed,  should  be 
"WHISKY  RECTIFIED  AND  REDISTILLED  so  AS  TO  REMOVE  ALL 
THE  FUSEL  OIL,"  would  that  be  a  fair  statement? 
Doctor  Wiley:  No,  sir.  The  word  "rectified"  conveys  an  en- 
tirely erroneous  impression  to  the  consuming  public.  It 
would  mean  that  something  had  improved  the  Whisky,  when, 
in  fact,  it  is  nothing  but  denatured  Whisky. 

53.  Mr.  Hough :    Running  it  through  charcoal  was  called  "rectify- 

ing," was  it  not? 
Doctor  Wiley:    That  is  one  process  of  rectifying;  yes,  sir. 

54.  Mr.  Hough :    If  they  then  redistilled  it  in  a  column  still  after- 

wards, it  was  then  called  "redistilled,"  was  it  not? 
Doctor  Wiley:    Both  processes  are  known  as  "rectifying." 

55.  Mr.  Hough:    Did  they  make  it  better  or  worse? 
Doctor  Wiley :    I  DO  NOT  KNOW  ANYTHING  ABOUT  THAT. 

56.  Mr.  Hough:     But  did  you  not  say  that  you  objected  to  the 

word  "rectifying"  because  that  meant  it  made  it  better? 
Doctor  Wiley:    /  would  object  to  the  use  of  the  word  "recti- 
fied" in  regard  to  anything  that  was  not  as  good  as  it  was  be- 
fore it  was  rectified. 

57.  Mr.  Hough:     Even  though  it  had  been  rectified? 

Doctor  Wiley:  /  would  object  to  the  use  of  the  word  "recti- 
fied" because  "to  rectify"  means  to  straighten  or  to  make 
better. 

58.  Mr.  Hough:     Even  though  it  had  been  rectified,  you  would 

object  to  it? 

Doctor  Wiley:    Even  though  it  had  been  rectified.     The  pub- 
lic would  be  deceived  by  it.     It  would  not  be  "rectification" 
66 


if  it  had  not  been  improved  in  some  way,  in  the  fair  sense  of 
that  word. 

59.  Mr.  Hough:     Do  you  not  know  from  the  literature  of  the 

subject,  and  from  what  was  said  by  people  of  that  time, 
that   the  article   then   produced   was   known    as   "Neutral 
Spirit?" 
Doctor  Wiley:    No,  sir. 

60.  Mr.  Hough:    Did  you  never  hear  the  term  used  with  refer- 

ence to  the  article  produced  by  that  process? 
Doctor  Wiley :    I  have  heard  the  term  used  in  regard  to  a  real 
"Neutral  Spirit"  from  which  all  the  congeneric  substances 
had  been  removed,  before  the  adoption  of  the  still. 

61.  Mr.  Hough:     /  am  asking  you  if  you  do  not  know  that  the 

term  "Neutral  Spirit"  applied  to  the  product,  before  any- 
thing had  been  added  to  it,  which  was  produced  by  that  proc- 
ess? 
Doctor  Wiley :    I  do  not. 

62.  The  Solicitor-General:     What  process  are  you  speaking  of? 
Mr.  Hough :     The  process  of  taking  high  wines  produced  in 

one  still — I  am  talking  about  the  days  before  the  continu- 
ous still — and  I  am  speaking  of  taking  the  high  wines  pro- 
duced in  one  distilling  apparatus  and  carrying  it  to  the  prem- 
ises of  the  rectifier,  and  leaching  it  through  charcoal,  and  re- 
distilling it  through  a  column. 

63.  The  Solicitor-General:     Both  leaching  and  redistilling? 

Mr.  Hough:  If  it  was  leached  through  charcoal,  they  called 
it  sometimes  "rectified,"  and  if  it  was  redistilled,  they  called 
it — 

Doctor  Wiley:  I  have  read  the  debates  in  Congress  in  1861 
and  1862  on  that  very  subject,  and  also  the  opinion  of  the 
Commissioner  of  Internal  Revenue  in  1865  on  that  subject. 
He  says  that  an  imitation  whisky  is  made  by  taking  "domestic 
whisky"  and  redistilling  it,  or  leaching  it  through  charcoal 
and  redistilling  it. 

64.  Mr.  Hough:    Did  he  not  say  er imitation  Bourbon  whisky?" 
Dr.  Wiley:     Yes,  he  said  "imitation  Bourbon  whisky" 

67 


65.  Mr.  Hough:    He  did  not  say  "imitation  whisky?" 
Doctor  Wiley :    He  said  (f imitation  Bourbon  whisky." 

66.  Mr.  Hough:    The  continuous  still  was  merely  the  continua- 

tion of  those  two  processes,  which  had  previously  been  car- 
ried on  on  the  premises  of  the  distiller  in  the  first  place  and 
of  the  rectifier  in  the  second  place,  was  it  not? 
Doctor  Wiley:     I  am  not  familiar  enough  with  the  technique 
to  say  that,  at  that  date.    /  do  not  know  anything  about  it. 

67.  The  Solicitor-General:     To  say  that  a  thing  is  adulterated 

presupposes  an  imperative  standard  of  production  and  an 
imperative  original  result.  Now,  where  have  we  got  the 
imperative  original  result? 

Doctor  Wiley :  We  have  the  imperative  original  result  in  the 
manner  in  which  this  distillate  is  made;  and  any  addition  or 
subtraction  to  or  from  the  distillate  after  it  is  made,  any 
manipulation  of  it  for  the  purpose  of  changing  its  character 
or  flavor,  or  diminishing  it  in  any  way,  is  an  adulteration. 
If  you  lower  or  injuriously  affect  its  flavor  or  strength,  it  is 
an  adulteration. 

68.  The  Solicitor-General:    That  is  all  right;  but  it  does  not  tell 

you  what  is  in  there  first. 

Doctor  Wiley:  But  whatever  is  in  there  first,  IF  YOU  DIMIN- 
ISH ITS  STRENGTH  OR  ADD  TO  IT,  IT  IS  AN  ADULTERATION. 

69.  The  Solicitor-General :    It  says  if  you  lower  the  quality  it  is  an 

adulteration.  Now,  before  you  can  tell  whether  there  is  a 
lowering  or  not,  you  have  to  find  out  what  the  standard  is — 
what  it  had  to  be  at  the  start. 

Doctor  Wiley :  Yes ;  and  we  do  find  that  out.  I  do  not  think 
there  is  any  trouble  to  find  that  out.  Suppose  you  take  a 
whisky  and  by  analysis  we  find  its  strength,  in  all  of  its  con- 
geners, so  far  as  we  can,  and  we  add  alcohol  to  that 
whisky  and  diminish  that  strength.  That  is  adulterating  it. 
If  you  add  a  single  drop  you  adulterate  it,  and  you  violate 
the  Food  and  Drugs  Act.  And  more  than  that,  you  adulter- 
ate it  with  a  poisonous  body,  which  is  forbidden  to  be  added 
— because  alcohol  is  a  poison;  it  is  universally  recognized  as 
such. 

68 


70.  Mr.  Hough :    You  say  alcohol  is  a  poison.    Did  you  not  testify 

that  you  agreed  with  Doctor  Atwater  that  alcohol  was  a 
food  up  to  certain  limitations? 
Doctor  Wiley:    Yes,  sir.    A  lot  of  foods  are  poisons. 

71.  Mr.  Hough:    When  you  used  the  word  "poison,"  you  meant 

that  it  is  no  more  poisonous  than  some  other  foods? 
Doctor  Wiley :    I  mean  that  alcohol  is  a  poison,  and  is  univer- 
sally recognized  as  such  by  everybody. 

72.  Mr.  Hough :    Would  you  say  that  the  alcohol  in  whisky  was 

a  poison  ? 
Doctor  Wiley :    Yes,  sir. 

73.  Mr.  Hough:    Then  Whisky  is  a  poison? 

Doctor  Wiley:    Yes,  it  is  a  poison;  everybody  knows  it. 

74.  The  Solicitor-General:     Strychnine  is  a  poison,  but  adding 

more  strychnine  to  it  would  not  be  considered  an  adultera- 
tion. On  the  contrary,  adding  an  innocuous  thing  would  be 
an  adulteration. 

Doctor  Wiley:    Adding  strychnine  to  nux  vomica  would  be  an 
adulteration. 

75.  The  Solicitor-General:    But  adding  milk  to  strychnine  would 

be  an  adulteration. 


76.  Mr.  Lucking:    I  understood  you  that  adding  anything  to  the 

article  you  call  WHISKY  is  an  adulteration,  except  water? 

Doctor  Wiley:    Yes,  sir. 

77.  Mr.  Lucking:     Now,  what  I  would  like  to  have  you  explain 

to  us  in  your  own  way  is  why  the  adding  of  extracts  from  the 
barrel  is  not  an  adulteration? 

Doctor  Wiley:     You  do  not  add  any  extracts  from  the  barrel, 

78.  Mr.  Lucking:    Are  they  not  extracts? 

Doctor  Wiley:  Yes;  but  they  do  not  add  them.  The  whisky 
takes  them  out.  There  is  a  difference  in  putting  a  thing  in 
yourself  and  having  the  whisky  put  it  in. 

69 


79-  The  Solicitor-General:  You  might  then  take  one  of  these 
things,  furfurol,  or  alcohol,  or  something  else,  and  put  it  in 
a  porous  bag,  or  something  of  that  sort,  and  stand  that  along- 
side of  your  whisky  and  let  this  process — I  do  not  know  its 
name — go  on,  and  then  the  whisky  would  be  taking  this 
thing  up  itself? 

Doctor  Wiley :  That  would  be  adulteration.  You  put  them 
there  for  that  purpose. 

80.  The  Solicitor-General:     Do  you  not  put  the  whisky  in  the 

charred  barrel? 

Doctor  Wiley:  Mr.  Solicitor,  there  is  no  adulteration  without 
purpose. 

8 1.  The  Solicitor-General:    When  you  put  whisky  into  a  charred 

barrel,  is  it  not  your  purpose  to  have  your  whisky  do  just 
what  you  know  will  happen  when  you  put  it  in  the  charred 
barrel  ? 

Doctor  Wiley :  The  purpose  is  to  improve  the  quality  of  the 
whisky  by  ageing. 

82.  The  Solicitor-General:     But  can  you  say  your  purpose  is  to 

improve  the  quality  any  more  by  possible  accentuation  or 
expedition  of  the  whisky's  own  processes,  than  by  having  it 
get  these  extracts  from  the  wood  which  you  know  under 
those  conditions  it  will  derive? 

Doctor  Wiley:  I  think  there  is  an  entirely  different  principle 
involved.  There  is  no  purpose  of  putting  w^hisky  aged  to 
adulterate — absolutely  none;  and  there  could  be  no  adultera- 
tion in  the  language  in  which  we  speak  of  it  without  purpose. 
If  a  man  accidentally  drops  furfurol  into  whisky  or  alcohol, 
that  is  not  adulteration,  because  adulteration  must  have  a 
purpose. 

83.  The  Solicitor-General:     Then,  if  a  fellow  accidentally  drops 

some  furfurol   or  alcohol  into  a  "Straight   Whisky''  you 
would  say  that  would  be  entitled  to  be  called  accidental  ? 
Doctor  Wiley :    I  SHOULD. 

84.  Mr.  Lucking:     You  char  the  barrel  on  purpose  to  give  that 

particular  article  a  color  and  flavor,  do  you  not? 

70 


Doctor  Wiley:  I  have  seen  the  coopers,  when  I  was  a  boy, 
make  barrels,  and  they  always  charred  them,  no  matter  what 
the  barrel  was  to  be  used  for. 

85.  Mr.  Lucking :    But  that  is  done  for  the  very  purpose — 
Doctor  Wiley:     I  think  the  purpose  of  charring  the  barrel  is, 

as  experience  shows,  that  the  whisky  is  better  in  a  charred 
barrel. 

86.  Mr.  Lucking:     Do  you  think  Scotch  Whisky,  not  bottled  in 

bond,  which  contains  some  caramel,  is  WHISKY? 
Doctor  Wiley :    I  think  it  is  legally  WHISKY  in  Scotland. 

87.  Mr.  Lucking:    You  think,  except  the  law  allows  it,  it  would 

not  be  WHISKY  at  all  ? 
Doctor  Wiley:     When  importing  Whisky  from  Scotland,  I 

SPECIFY  IT  SHALL  HAVE  NO  CARAMEL  IN  IT. 

88.  Mr.   Lucking:     Now,  Doctor,  does  it  not  affect  your  judg- 

ment as  a  public  officer  at  all  that  for  two  hundred  years 
whisky  has  always  been  colored  with  caramel? 
Doctor  Wiley:    I  do  not  admit  that  fact  at  all. 

89.  Mr.  Lucking:     Before  the  charred  barrel  was  ever  heard  of, 

caramel  or  burnt  sugar — 

Doctor  Wiley:  //  never  was  used  by  my  grandfather  or  my 
father. 

90.  Mr.  Lucking:    We  have  books  here  160  years  old  saying  that 

is  the  way. 

Doctor  Wiley:  And  the  books  say  it  was  done  so  as  to  imitate 
the  color  of  French  brandy.1  I  can  prove  it  by  Moorhead. 

91.  Mr.  Lucking:     Will  whisky  never  obtain  the  right  to  use 

caramel  as  color  ? 

Doctor  Wiley:  Not  as  long  as  age  and  color  due  to  age  are 
associated  with  good  whisky. 

92.  Mr.  Lucking:    Is  it  any  more  artificial  to  put  caramel  or  burnt 

sugar  to  color  the  whisky  than  to  do  it  by  the  charred-barrel 
process? 

Doctor  Wiley:  Yes,  sir;  because,  the  one  comes  by  long  age, 
and  only  long  age,  and  the  other  is  made  directly. 


1  Doctor  Wiley's  eriginal  accusation  was  that  caramel  coloring  was  an  imitation  of  charred  barrel  color- 
ing:   that  being  proved  false,  he  promptly  shifts  his  ground. 

71 


93-  Mr.  Hough :  Then  you  exclude  as  a  WHISKY,  and  you  think 
the  public  would  exclude  as  a  WHISKY,  any  whisky  which 
had  a  color  due  to  added  caramel  ? 

Doctor  Wiley:  I  should  not  exclude  it  as  a  WHISKY,  but  1 
would  call  it  a  "Compound  Whisky"  or  "Imitation  Whis- 
ky" as  the  case  might  be. 

94.  Mr.  Hough :    Does  not  that  exclude  it? 

Doctor  Wiley:  No,  not  as  Whisky.  It  distinctly  permits  it 
to  be  called  Whisky.  So  would  I.  I  never  denied  the  name 
Whisky  to  any  of  your  products. 

95.  The  Solicitor-General :  i  DO  NOT  THINK  "IMITATION  WHISKY" 

IS  WHISKY.      IF  IT  IS,  YOU  MIGHT  AS  WELL  LEAVE  OFF  THE 


96.  Mr.  Hough:    You  are  familiar  with  the  flavor  of  a  distilled 

spirit  from  grain  which  contains  all  the  congeners,  of  about 
proof,  are  you  not,  before  it  is  put  in  a  charred  barrel,  or  any 
kind  of  a  barrel  ? 
Doctor  Wiley :    Partly  so.    I  am  not  an  expert  on  that. 

97.  Mr.  Hough:     The  flavor  which  it  then  has  is  a  distinctive 

flavor,  is  it  not? 
Doctor  Wiley:    Yes,  sir. 

98.  Mr.  Hough :    And  it  is  a  distinctive  flavor  due  to  the  congen- 

ers plus  the  ethyl  alcohol,  is  it  not? 

Doctor  Wiley:  It  is  the  flavor  which  is  due  to  the  whole  com- 
position, no  difference  what  it  is.  There  may  be  fifty  sub- 
stances in  there,  and  there  probably  are. 

99.  Mr.  Hough:     I  am  not  limiting  the  number  of  substances 

under  the  term  "congeners;"  but  I  say  it  is  a  flavor  that  is 
due  to  the  ethyl  alcohol  plus  the  congeners. 
Doctor  Wiley :    And  plus  the  materials  derived  from  the  grain. 
They  are  not  congeners. 

100.  Mr.  Hough:    What  are  they? 

Doctor  Wiley:  They  are  the  original  material  derived  from 
the  grain. 

101.  Mr.  Hough:    Name  them. 

Doctor  Wiley:    /  don't  know  what  they  are. 


102.  Mr.  Hough:     Have  you  ever  seen  any  refined  distilled  spirit 

from  grain,  reduced  to  proof,  if  it  was  not  reduced  to  proof 
before,  and  colored  with  caramel? 
Doctor  Wiley :    I  have  done  that  myself  frequently. 

103.  Mr.  Hough :    Then  you  know  the  odor,  aroma  and  flavor  from 

it? 

Doctor  Wiley:  It  is  just  a  pure  spirit.  It  does  not  change  it  at 
all. 

104.  Mr.  Hough:    The  odor,  aroma  and  flavor  is  different  in  one 

from  that  in  the  other  ? 
Doctor  Wiley :    One  is  alcohol  and  the  other  is  whisky. 

105.  Mr.  Hough:    Without  reference  to  what  the  names  are — the 

distinctive  odor  and  flavor  of  the  one  is  different  from  the 
distinctive  odor  and  flavor  of  the  other  ? 
Doctor  Wiley:    Undoubtedly. 

106.  Mr.  Hough:    Now,  is  it  not  a  fact  that  more  than  90  per  cent 

of  the  consumers  of  whisky  in  the  United  States  reject  that 
first  article  (meaning  "Straight  Whisky")  as  the  thing  which 
they  would  recognize  as  WHISKY  ? 

Doctor  Wiley :  I  do  not  think  90  per  cent  of  the  consumers  of 
the  United  States  ever  had  a  chance  to  reject  it. 

107.  Mr.  Hough:     Has  not  bottled-in-bond  whisky  been  most  ex- 

tensively advertised? 
Doctor  Wiley :    It  may  have  been  advertised ;  yes,  sir. 

1 08.  Mr.  Hough :    Has  it  not  been  called  to  the  attention  of  the  con- 

sumer in  every  way  possible  ? 
Doctor  Wiley :    I  think  it  has  been  advertised ;  yes,  sir. 

109.  Mr.  Hough:    Have  you  ever  seen  a  statement  that  bottled-in- 

bond  whisky  was  the  only  pure  whisky,  and  the  only  real 
whisky,  published  all  over  the  land  ? 

Doctor  Wiley :  I  have  seen  this  statement — that  the  only  way 
the  purchaser  could  assure  himself  that  he  was  getting  a 
whisky  four  years  old,  pure  and  unmixed,  was  by  buying  the 
bottled-in-bond  whisky.  I  have  made  that  statement  myself 
frequently. 

73 


'lio.      Mr.  Hough:     Has  not  that  been  published  broadcast? 
Doctor  Wiley :    Yes,  sir ;  it  has. 

in.  Mr.  Hough:  You  do  know  that  fully  95  per  cent  of  the  con- 
sumers in  this  country  drank  this  other  substance,  either  alone 
or  mixed  with  the  "Straight  Whisky,"  do  you  not? 
Doctor  Wiley :  /  think  that  is  true;  and  I  think  they  were  de- 
ceived all  the  time — thought  they  had  been  drinking  real 
whisky.  I  never  knew  one  that  did  not  think  he  was  drink- 
ing real  whisky  that  I  have  asked  about  it,  or  who  has  in- 
formed me  about  it.  It  is  a  universal  deception  of  the  mean- 
est kind.  I  DO  NOT  KNOW  ANYTHING  THAT  HAS  EVER  BEEN 
PRACTICED  THAT  IS  WORSE. 

112.  Mr.  Hough :    You  said  that  fully  90  per  cent  of  consumers  had 

been  drinking  this,  and  that  it  was  a  fraud  on  them? 
Doctor  Wiley:    I  think  so. 

113.  Mr.  Hough:    That  they  drank  it  as  WHISKY? 
Doctor  Wiley :    I  think  so. 

114.  Mr.  Hough :    They  bought  it  time  and  time  again  as  WHISKY? 
Doctor  Wiley:    Yes. 

115.  Mr.  Hough:     They  were  satisfied  with  it  as  WHISKY  until 

somebody  came  and  told  them  that  it  was  not  WHISKY? 
Doctor  Wiley:    I  do  not  know  about  that. 

116.  Mr.   Hough:     When  a  consumer  is  told   from  someone  in 

authority  that  what  he  has  been  consuming  as  WHISKY  was 
not  WHISKY  it  would  be  natural  that  he  would  like  to  try 
the  real  whisky,  would  it  not? 

Doctor  Wiley:     They  paid  a  good  deal  of  attention  to  what  I 
have  said,  in  this  country — all  consumers. 

117.  Mr.  Hough:    On  whisky,  too? 
Doctor  Wiley:     On  every  kind  of  foods. 

1 1 8.  Mr.  Hough :    Do  you  not  know  of  plenty  of  instances  in  which 

people,  after  they  had  been  told  what  they  had  been  drinking 
was  not  the  real  thing,  would  try  to  like  the  "Straight 
Whisky/'  and  have  changed  back  again  ? 
Doctor  Wiley:    /  never  knew  One  in  my  life. 

74 


119.  Mr.  Hough:    You  never  knew  ONE? 

Doctor  Wiley :  /  never  knew  a  man  who  had  been  in  the  habit 
of  drinking  what  you  call  whisky,  who  drank  a  real  whisky, 
who  ever  wanted  to  change  back.  On  the  contrary,  he  is  a 
most  enthusiastic  drinker  of  the  "Straight"  goods.  I  NEVER 

KNEW  ONE. 

1 20.  Mr.  Hough:    But  you  say  that  the  two  are  easily  distinguish- 

able according  to  the  distinctions  of  taste  and  smell? 
Doctor  Wiley:     No,  sir.     You  can  so  imitate  a  whisky  that 
even  the  elect  would  be  deceived* 

121.  Mr.  Hough:     I  wish  to  read  from  your  statement,  Doctor 

Wiley,  before  the  House  Committee  on  Interstate  and  For- 
eign Commerce,  on  February  26,  1906.  I  have  here  a  vol- 
ume of  the  hearings  of  that  committee  on  the  Pure  Food 
Bill  and  I  read  from  page  322 : 

I  went  to  Ireland,  and  I  found  that  whisky  was  made 
there  exactly  as  it  is  in  this  country  in  Kentucky,  *  *  * 
in  a  pot  still. 

Did  you  know  at  that  time  that  the  product  you  there  refer- 
red to  in  Kentucky  was  not  made  in  a  pot  still? 
Doctor  Wiley :  Well,  /  had  never  then  visited  a  distillery  in 
Kentucky,  but  /  understood  the  method  of  distillation  was 
essentially  such  as  Doctor  Tolman  described  yesterday,  in  a 
still  which  was  essentially  two  pot  stills  put  together. 

122.  Mr.  Hough:    A  chambered  still? 

Doctor  Wiley:  With  two  chambers;  two  pot  stills  superim- 
posed one  upon  the  other. 

123.  Mr.  Hough:    Then  if  it  has  got  ten,  it  is  ten  pot  stills f 
Doctor  Wiley :  I  DO  NOT  KNOW. 

124.  Mr.  Hough:   //  it  has  got  thirty,  it  is  thirty  pot  stills? 
Doctor  Wiley :  I  DO  NOT  KNOW. 

125.  Mr.  Hough:     You  found  out  afterwards  that  that  was  a  mis- 

take— that  they  did  not  have  that  kind  of  stills,  did  you  not? 
Doctor  Wiley:     I  found  out  that  the  temperature  at  which 
they  distilled  it  was  essentially  the  same. 

ISee  amusing  completion  of  this — page  21. 

75 


126.  Mr.  Hough:    /  am  asking  you  about  the  character  of  the  still? 
Doctor  Wiley:    The  character  of  the  still  is  not  essentially  the 

pot  still  he  described ;  that  is,  a  real  pot  still. 

127.  Mr.  Hough:    I  continue  reading: 

and  this  great  Blending  industry  was  behind 
him. 

When  you  said  "Blending  industry"  there,  you  meant  the 
mixing  of  their  "silent  spirits"  with  their  "pot  still  spirits?" 

Doctor  Wiley :  I  used  it  in  the  sense  in  which  it  had  generally 
been  employed,  and  not  in  the  sense  to  which  it  is  restricted 
in  The  Food  and  Drugs  Act. 

128.  Mr.  Hough:    This  was  before  the  passage  of  The  Food  and 

Drugs  Act? 

Doctor  Wiley :    Yes,  sir. 

129.  Mr.  Hough:     So  that  you  were  referring  to  the  mixing  of 

"silent  spirits"  in  England  with  the  "pot  still  spirits,"  and 
the  mixing  of  pur  "Straight  whiskies"  with  our  "neutral 
spirits?" 

Doctor  Wiley:  That  was  commonly  called  "blending"  at  that 
time. 

130.  Mr.  Hough:    I  continue  reading: 

Now,  I  want  to  say,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  I  have  not  the 
least  opposition  to  BLENDED  WHISKY.  *  *  *  Now, 
I  say  that  that  is  a  business  which  is  perfectly  legitimate.  I 
am  sorry  that  our  laws  are  so  hard  on  the  man  who 
makes  a  STRAIGHT  WHISKY,  and  so  easy  on  those  who 
make  the  MIXED  WHISKY.  *  *  * 
Mr.  Ryan :  The  blenders  and  the  wholesale  liquor  deal- 
ers and  rectifiers  in  New  York,  for  instance,  are  very 
much  disturbed  about  this.  *  *  They  fear  that 

this  law  will  show  to  the  public,  or  attempt  to  show  to 
the  public,  or  the  public  will  assume,  that  whisky  bottled 
in  bond  is  the  proper  thing,  and  will  injuriously  affect 
their  business,  when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  no  evidence 
of  quality  or  purity  that  it  is  bottled  in  bond,  as  you  state 
now  yourself. 

76 


Doctor  Wiley :  What  I  think  that  Congress  ought  to  do 
is  this:  put  the  STRAIGHT  WHISKY  and  the  BLENDED 
WHISKY  on  the  same  plane.  *  *  * 

131.  Mr.  Hough:  I  continue  to  read  from  page  325,  as  follows: 
Let  me  put  myself  in  the  place  of  a  consumer.  *  *  * 
Suppose  I  do  not  know  anything  about  whisky,  practically, 
as  I  do  not,  I  am  glad  to  say.  *  Now,  I  am  not  a 

connoisseur.  *  * .  My  opinion  would  not  be  worth 
anything,  because  I  am  not  an  expert.  *  It  is  not  a 

question  of  wholesomeness.  *  *  It  is  well  known  that 
a  "Straight  Whisky"  has  more  fusel  oil  in  it.  *  *  * 
I  know  most  of  these  blenders  are  most  honorable  men 
and  make  a  good  article  of  liquor.  *  *  Nobody 

knows  anything  about  "Straight  Whisky,"  and  when  a 
man  asks  another  man  what  he  likes,  he  finds  that  he  likes 
what  he  is  drinking. 


77 


CHAPTER  XIII 

Dr.  Wiley's  Chemist  Disciples  as  Witnesses 

• 
THEIR  SELF-CONTRADICTION:  THEIR  CONTRADICTION  OF  EACH  OTHER: 

THEIR  PRESUMPTION:  THEIR  IGNORANCE:  THEIR  BIAS. 

(Our  great  regret  is  the  impossibility  of  giving  the  entire  evidence 
of  these  "scientific"  gentlemen.  It  was  an  astounding  revelation,  and 
we  heartily  wish  the  people  could  know  all  about  it. ) 


PROF.   JOSEPH    P.   REMINGTON— Editor    United    States 
Pharmacopoeia  and  United  States  Dispensatory. 

He  formerly  prohibited  Caramel  color  in 
Brandy — 

In  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  it  had  never  been  colored 
with  anything  else. 

He  thought  free  acid  in  Whisky  decreased 
with  age. 

It  increases. 

He  thought  new  Whisky  contained  tannin. 

It  does  not. 

His  U.  S.  DISPENSATORY  says  that  Whisky 
should  be  freed  from  fusel  oil,  because  it 
seriously  contaminates  the  spirit. 
Yet,  he  agreed  with  Dr.  Wiley,  that  it  was  the  smell  of 
the  fusel  oil  which  was  meant. 

He  admitted  that  the  u.  S.  PHARMACOPOEIA 
intended  to  exclude  Whisky  having  "an  ex- 
cess of  fusel  oil." 

Yet,  he  appeared  as  a  witness  for  those  who  maintain 
that  there  cannot  be  "an  excess  of  fusel  oil :"  who  main- 
tain that  Whisky  must  contain  all  the  fusel  oil. 

78 


He  said  he  considered  "Straight  Whisky" 
the  only  good  Whisky,  and  the  only  one  con- 
forming to  the  Pharmacopoeia. 
Yet,  the  Pharmacopoeia  prohibits  more  than  "a  trace" 
of  fusel  oil,  and  "Straight  Whisky"  cannot  pass  that 
test. 

He  said  he  could  not  say  whether  a  thing  was 
WHISKY  or  not  from  description:  that  he 
must  see  it. 

Yet,  he  admitted  that  he  could  not  be  sure  of  telling 
Whisky  from  Brandy  when  he  did  see  it;  and  that  he 
could  not  tell  "Scotch"  from  "Irish,"  or  "Rye"  from 
"Bourbon"  by  taste  or  smell. 

The  following  gem  from  his  testimony  is  a  fair  sample  of  how 
much  Chemists  know  about  WHISKY,  and  what  would  happen  if 
they  were  given  the  authority  they  desire: 

Dr.  Wiley:  If  I  should  present  to  you  an  article  and  ask  you  to 
say  if  it  resembles  whisky,  you  must,  as  a  scientific  man,  have  a 
real  whisky  by  you  as  a  comparison? 

Prof.  Remington :    Yes. 

Dr.  Wiley:   Is  not  that  the  universal  practice? 

Prof.  Remington:    Yes. 

Mr.  Armstrong :  If  you  wanted  to  test  this  substance  which  you 
sold  under  the  name  of  Whisky,  what  else  would  you  use 
than  your  Pharmacopoeia  and  the  article  there  entitled  "Spiritus 
Frumenti"  ? 

Prof.  Remington :  Well,  if  I  suspected  that  something  was  wrong, 
I  would  test  it  by  the  tests  which  the  chemists  use,  not  the 
Pharmacopoeia.  I  would  look  at  my  text  book,  and  I  would 
look  at  Allen,  hunt  up  Leach,  and  if  I  thought  there  was  any- 
thing wrong  about  that  whisky,  I  would  run  it  out  until  I  fount? 
out  what  was  wrong  with  it,  if  I  could. 

Mr.  Armstrong:  Would ^you  compare  it  with  any  other  substance 
which  you  believed  to  be  Whisky? 

Prof.  Remington:    Yes,  I  would  do  that,  too. 

Mr.  Armstrong:  Where  would  you  get  the  other  substance  from? 

79 


Prof.  Remington:    I  would  always  use  Whisky  that  I  knew  was 

Whisky. 

Mr.  Armstrong:  Suppose  you  had  none? 
Prof.  Remington :    I  would  get  some. 
Mr.  Armstrong :   Where? 

Prof.  Remington :  From  somebody  that  did  know. 
Mr.  Armstrong :    Who,  for  instance,  would  you  get  some  ffbm  ? 
Prof.  Remington:     Well,  I  think  Dr.  Wiley  knows  what  good 

Whisky  is. 
Mr.  Armstrong :  You  would  get  some  Whisky  from  Dr.  Wiley  for 

comparison  ? 
Prof.  Remington :   Yes,  I  would  get  some  from  Dr.  Wiley. 

We  beg  our  readers  to  peruse  this  morsel  attentively.  Mark  the 
hunt  in  the  dark  which  this  "star  witness,"  this  Editor  of  books  which 
are  accepted  as  "standards,"  (his  Pharmacopoeia  is  the  legalized  stan- 
dard for  Whisky  in  North  Dakota),  would  have,  to  find  out  whether 
there  was  anything  wrong,  IF  HE  COULD. 

He  would  get  his  real  Whisky  from  Dr.  Wiley,  who  confesses 
that  he  knows  nothing  about  Whisky  personally,1  and  that  neither  he 
nor  any  other  Chemist  can  tell  Whisky  from  Brandy  or  Rum  by 
Chemistry :  in  other  words,  that  if  a  Chemist  can  tell  what  is  WTiisky, 
it  is  only  by  taste  and  smell,  just  like  ordinary  men  tell  it. 

Was  there  ever  anything  more  farcical  than  the  pretensions  of 
these  Chemists,  which  plunged  the  whole  Whisky  Trade  of  the  country 
into  chaos,  and  kept  it  there  for  three  years? 

There  was  a  very  funny  episode  connected  with  Prof.  Remington's 
appearance  as  a  witness.  After  a  few  questions,  Mr.  Hough,  who 
had  cross-examined  him,  said  he  had  finished.  With  the  bumptious- 
ness which  characterised  so  many  of  Dr.  Wiley's  disciples,  Prof.  Rem- 
ington said:  "Do  not  stop."  So  Mr.  Hough  resumed,  with  the  re- 
sult that  the  Professor  got  so  deeply  into  the  mire  that  Dr.  Wiley  came 
to  his  rescue  with  some  six  dozen  questions,  which  the  Professor  an- 
swered like  a  model  phonograph.  Then  followed  a  little  more  cross- 
examination,  and  the  Professor  sank  still  deeper  in  the  mud.  So  Dr. 
Wiley  came  to  his  aid  again;  and  Senator  Carlisle  and  Mr.  Taylor 
also  tried  to  give  him  a  lift.  In  the  end,  the  witness  who  was  not  con- 
tent to  be  easily  dismissed  left  the  chair  as  sorry  a  spectacle  as  could 
be  imagined. 

iChapter  XII— question  131. 

80 


PROF.  RICHARD  FISCHER — State  Chemist  of  Wisconsin. 
In  December,  1906,  he  visited  Kentucky  dis- 
tilleries to  study  the  Whisky  question. 
In  April,  1909,  he  could  not  describe  the  stills  he  had 
seen,  how  they  were  operated,  or  the  process  of  distilling. 

He  thought  he  had  never  heard  anything 
about  the  process  of  distilling  in  England. 

He  knew  nothing  about  the  coloring  and 
flavoring  of  early  Scotch  and  Irish  Whiskies. 
But  he  considered  Caramel  color  an  adulteration — 

He  admitted  having  only  a  limited  knowl- 
edge of  what  the  Whisky  Trade  regards  as 
Whisky. 

He  thought  that  until  the  "Column  Still" 

came     in,     all     Whisky     was     "Straight 

Whisky"— 

Which  the  President  found  upon  the  evidence  to  be  a 

comparatively  modern  product. 

Here  are  samples  of  his  testimony  on  cross-examination — 
As  to  his  official  recommendation  of  "Straight  Whisky" 

Mr.  Hough :    Did  you  know  at  that  time  what  were  the  constitu- 
ents of  the  article,  or  how  it  was  made  ? 

Prof.  Fischer :    I  did  not  have  any  very  definite  idea. 

Mr.  Hough:     Didn't  you  have  the  impression  at  that  time  that 

that  whisky  contained  no  fusel  oil? 
Prof.  Fischer:    /  do  not  know  whether  I  did  or  not. 

As  to  his  knowledge  of  distilling  processes 

Mr.  Hough :    Do  you  know  anything  about  sweet  mash  and  sour 
mash  processes? 

Prof.  Fischer:     I  think  there  are  experts  here  who  know  more 

about  it  than  I  do. 
Mr.  Hough :    I  am  not  asking  you  what  you  do  not  know ;  I  am 

asking  you  what  you  do  know? 
Prof.  Fischer:  I  do  not  know  very  much  about  it. 

81 


As  to  his  visit  to  Kentucky  distilleries  to  study  Whisky 

Mr.  Hough:     What  is  the  character  of  still  they  use? 

Prof.  Fischer:    I  do  not  know  the  names  of  the  stills  they  use. 

Mr.  Hough:     How  many  chambers  in  the  beer  stills  you  saw? 

Prof.    Fischer :    I  could  not  tell  you  any  more. 

Mr.  Hough :  Did  you  know  there  was  a  still  having  one  chamber, 
and  a  still  having  more,  at  that  time? 

Prof.  Fischer:     I  presume  there  is  a  difference. 

Mr.  Hough:  But  did  you  know  at  that  time  that  there  is  a  dif- 
ference ? 

Prof.  Fischer:    I  think  so. 

Mr.  Hough :  Then  don't  you  know  that  it  makes  a  difference  in 
the  character  of  the  product  produced,  as  to  the  number  of 
chambers  in  a  still? 

Prof.  Fischer:  I  suppose  it  has  something  to  do  with  the  char- 
acter. 

Mr.  Hough :  When  the  product  ran  over  in  the  worm  out  of  the 
tail  box,  was  there  any  separation  there  that  you  noticed? 

Prof.  Fischer:  I  have  not  a  distinct  enough  recollection  of  the 
process  of  distillation  so  that  I  want  to  go  on  record  as  describ- 
ing it. 

As  to  the  chemical  "standards"  for  which  he  voted 

Mr.  Hough:  Do  you  know  the  considerations  which  led  to  the 
adoption  of  the  definition  for  DISTILLED  SPIRITS? 

Prof.  Fischer :    I  do  not  know  exactly. 

Mr.  Hough :    Who  proposed  it,  if  you  know  ? 

Prof.  Fischer:    No,  I  do  not  know. 

Mr.  Hough:    Who  prepared  it? 

Prof.  Fischer:    I  do  not  know  that. 

Mr.  Hough :  Did  you  know  when  you  adopted  that  definition  for 
DISTILLED  SPIRITS  that  it  was  contrary  to  the  definition  accord- 
ing to  act  of  Congress? 

Prof.  Fischer:    /  do  not  know  that. 


Mr.  Lucking :    Now,  then,  did  you  write  that  standard  as  known 
by  the  trade  into  this  standard,  or  not? 

82 


Prof.  Fischer:  I  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  writing  of  that 
standard.  That  was  in  a  tentative  draft,  and  it  practically  went 
through  without  criticism. 

Mr.  Lucking :  Did  you  understand  when  you  voted  for  it  that  you 
were  recognizing  an  existing  kind  of  whisky? 

Prof.  Fischer:  In  voting  for  that  standard  I  did  not  know  very 
much  about  it — of  that  particular  standard,  I  mean. 

Mr.  Lucking:  You  knew,  then,  at  that  time,  that  a  very  large 
proportion  of  the  whisky  drunk  in  this  country  previous  to  that 
time,  was  not,  according  to  your  standard,  whisky  in  any  shape? 

Prof.  Fischer:    Yes,  sir. 

Mr.  Lucking:  Do  you  know  whether  or  not  substantially  all 
whiskies  were  colored  with  sugar  before  1860? 

Prof.  Fischer :    I  do  not. 

Mr.  Lucking:  Would  that  have  made  any  difference  to  you  in 
adopting  a  standard? 

Prof.  Fischer :  I  do  not  think  I  would  approve  of  the  addition  of 
coloring. 

And  this  is  the  man  who  was  Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  scien- 
tific gentlemen  who  made  "standards"  which  denied  the  name  WHISKY 
to  perhaps  ninety-five  per  cent  of  all  the  whisky  drunk  in  the  country 
— this  "I-do-not-know"  expert. 

And  to  crown  all,  mark  the  presumption  of  the  following — 
Mr.  Lucking:     Have  you  heard  the  testimony  here  of  a  dozen 

witnesses,  that  the  effort  of  distillers  for  fifty  years,  at  least, 

has  been  to  rectify  as  much  as  possible? 

Prof.  Fischer:  They  may  have  thought  they  were  doing  that, 
but  I  do  not  think  they  were. 


PROF.  EDWIN  F.  LADD — State  Chemist  and  Food  Com- 
missioner of  North  Dakota. 

He  excluded  Brandy  because  of  Caramel 
color — 

In  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  Brandy  had  never  been 
colored  with  anything  else. 

83 


He  said  certain  Whiskies  were  "of  known 
purity,  because  Bottled-in-Bond." 

There  is  no  assurance  of  purity  whatever,  as  Dr.  Wiley 
himself  told  a  Congressional  Committee. 

He  admitted  that  he  was  not  at  all  familiar 
with  the  process  of  distilling. 

He  said  that  the  "Congeners",  (Dr.  Wiley's 
invented  name  for  fusel  oil),  are  approxi- 
mately the  same  in  all  Whiskies — 

The  fact  being  that  they  vary  as  much  as  five  to  one. 

He  confessed  his  ignorance  of  Trade  Names. 

He  testified  that  the  U.  S.  PHARMACOPOEIA 
had  been  for  years  the  legal  standard  of 
North  Dakota,  and  said  he  would  not  per- 
mit the  sale  of  anything  which  did  not  con- 
form thereto. 

But  he  had  to  admit  that  he  had  passed  as  legal  "Straight 
Whiskies"  containing  more  fusel  oil  than  the  Phar- 
macopoeia allows. 

He  officially  reported  that  from  ninety  to 
ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  Whiskies  sold  in 
his  State  were  not  true  Whisky. 

The  enquiry  proved  that  they  were  all  condemned  with- 
out any  justification. 

He  said  that  the  purest  Whisky  would  not 
conform  to  the  Pharmacopoeia  if  it  contain- 
ed Caramel  color. 
He  was,  of  course,  mistaken. 

He  agreed  with  Dr.  Wiley  and  Prof. 
Remington  that  what  was  meant  by  remov- 
ing fusel  oil  from  Whisky  was  that  the 
smell  of  fusel  oil  should  be  removed. 


The  following  are  examples  of  the  ignorance  and  bias  of  this  wit- 
ness— 

84 


Mr.  Hough :  Don't  you  know  that  brandy  has  never  at  any  time, 
in  any  country,  been  put  in  a  charred  barrel  for  the  purpose  of 
giving  color? 

Prof.  Ladd :    That  I  would  not  say. 

Mr.  Hough :    Do  you  know  anything  on  that  subject  at  all  ? 

Prof.  Ladd :  I  have  stated  that  I  have  done  very  little  work  with 
brandies. 

Mr.  Hough:  Tarn  asking  you  what  your  knowledge  is.  You  do 
not  have  to  have  done  any  work  on  that  subject  to  know  what 
that  fact  is.  Is  it  not  a  fact  that  they  never  have,  at  any  time 
in  any  country,  used  charred  barrels  for  brandy? 

Prof.  Ladd:    That  I  would  not  say. 

Mr.  Hough:    Would  you  say  that  they  have? 

Prof.  Ladd :    No ;  I  say  I  have  not  done  work — 

Mr.  Hough:    You  mean  you  do  not  know? 

Prof.  Ladd :    /  do  not  know. 


Mr.  Hough:    Do  you  know  when  the  process  of  manufacturing 
"Continuous  Whisky"  first  commenced? 

Prof.  Ladd :     I  am  not  familiar  with  that.    I  would  not  attempt 
to  say. 

Mr.  Hough:     Do  you  know  how  Alcohol  was  produced  forty 
years  ago? 

Prof.  Ladd :    I  would  not  attempt  to  say.    I  am  not  familiar  with 
the  manufacturing  end  of  it. 

Mr.  Hough:    Do  you  know  how  it  is  produced  to-day? 

Prof.  Ladd:    In  a  general  way,  without  being  familiar  with  the 
process  of  manufacture. 

Mr.  Hough :    Do  you  know  how  Gin  is  made  ? 
Prof.  Ladd :    I  do  not — that  is,  in  the  distilling. 


Questioned  regarding  the  "standards"  for  which  he  voted— 
Mr.  Hough:    And  they  there  adopted  a  definition  of  RECTIFIED 
WHISKY  without  knowing  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  Rec- 
tified Whisky? 

85 


Prof.  Ladd :  The  committee  are  the  ones  to  enquire  about  that — 
to  ask  about  that. 

Mr.  Hough:    I  want  to  know  what  actuated  you? 

Prof.  Ladd:    /  voted  for  the  report  of  the  committee. 

Mr.  Hough :    Without  investigating  the  facts  ? 

Prof.  Ladd :    /  accepted  the  report. 

Mr.  Hough:  In  other  words,  you  were  satisfied  with  their  con- 
clusions? 

Prof.  Ladd:  I  was  satisfied  that  it  was  a  competent  committee, 
and  that  it  had  secured  the  information  which  was  available. 

The  reader  will  have  no  difficulty  in  perceiving  what  it  must  be 
for  a  great  industry  to  be  at  the  rnercy  of  men  who  would  thus  blindly 
vote  for  "standards"  which  were  to  condemn  about  95%  of  all  the 
Whisky  in  the  United  States. 

Professor  Ladd  being  in  the  uncomfortable  position  of  having  to 
admit  that  he  had  passed  "Straight  Whiskies"  which  contained  more 
Fusel  Oil  than  is  permitted  by  the  legal  standard  of  the  State  by  which 
he  is  employed — the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia,  Doctor  Wiley  came  to  his 
assistance — 

Dr.  Wiley:    Is  it  true  that  the  Pharmacopoeia  test  for  fusel  oil  is 

the  odor? 
Prof.  Ladd:    Yes. 

Dr.  Wiley :  Is  it  not  true  that  when  this  test  was  written  it  was 
the  opinion  of  all  chemists  that  the  ageing  removed  the  fusel 
oil? 

Prof.  Ladd:    Yes,  sir. 

Dr.  Wiley.    What  is  it  that  is  removed  by  ageing? 
Prof.  Ladd:    The  odor. 
Dr.  Wiley :    And  what  was  described  here  as  fusel  oil  is  removed 

by  ageing,  namely,  ODOR? 
Prof.  Ladd:    YES,  sir. 
Dr.  Wiley :    It  told  you  to  test  for  an  odor  that  was  called  Fusel 

Oil,  and  which  was  thought  to  be  Fusel  Oil? 
Prof.  Ladd:    Yes. 

If  Doctor  Wiley  thought  he  got  Prof.  Ladd  out  of  one  difficulty, 
he  certainly  placed  the  Professor  and  himself  in  a  much  worse  one,  for, 

86 


unluckily  for  them,  the  same  Pharmacopoeia  which  makes  this  test  for 

FUSEL  OIL  also  describes  what  FUSEL  OIL  is,  and  it  doesn't  call  it  an 

ODOR  by  any  means.    The  description  is — 

"An  oil,  nearly  colorless,  liquid,  having  a  strong,  offensive 
"odor,  and  an  acrid  burning  taste.     Its  specific  gravity 
"is  0.818,  and  its  boiling  point  between  268°  and  272°. 
"It  is  sparingly  soluble  in  water,"  &c. 
Could  anything  worse  be  imagined   than  this  attempt  of  these 

scientists  to  explain  away  the  difficulty  they  had  got  themselves  into! 

And  note  their  determination  to  uphold  "Straight  Whisky"  and  to 
condemn  "Refined  Whisky" — 

Dr.  Wiley:  Under  your  law  a  whisky  which  contained  three 
times  as  much  acid  as  the  pharmacopoeial  test  prescribed  would 
be  perfectly  legal  if  it  was  labelled  "Contains  three  times  as 
much  acid  as  the  pharmacopoeial  standard?" 

Prof.  Ladd:    Yes. 

Dr.  Wiley :  Is  there  any  kind  of  a  label  you  could  put  on  neutral 
spirits  which  would  make  it  legal  to  be  sold  as  Whisky  ? 

Prof.  Ladd :    I  know  of  none ;  not  to  be  sold  as  Whisky. 

Mr.  Hough :  You  could  not  put  any  label  on  it,  could  you,  which 
would  permit  it  to  be  sold  as  Whisky? 

Prof.  Ladd :    No,  sir. 

Mr.  Hough :  But  you  can  put  a  label  on  Whisky  which  contains 
every  one  of  the  ingredients  prescribed  in  greater  quantities 
than  mentioned,  by  putting  that  on  the  label? 

Prof.  Ladd :    Yes. 

Mr.  Hough:    It  would  be  perfectly  legal? 

Prof.  Ladd:    Yes. 

Mr.  Hough:  So  that  there  would  be  no  danger  of  STRAIGHT 
WHISKY  being  driven  out  of  your  State  by  any  of  these  re- 
strictions of  the  pharmacopoeial  standard  ? 

Prof.  Ladd:    No. 

Mr.  Hough:  Under  the  answers  you  gave  to  Doctor  Wiley, 
what  would  prevent  this  substance  which  you  say  is  not  Whisky 
because  the  Fusel  Oil  has  been  removed  from  it,  from  being 
sold  in  your  State  under  a  label  which  says:  "Whisky  from 
which  as  much  as  possible  of  the  Fusel  Oil  has  been  removed  ?" 

87 


Prof.  Ladd :    It  would  not  be  Whisky. 

Mr.  Hough:     Would  not  that  be  a  truthful  label? 

Prof.  Ladd:    No. 


Mr.  Hough :  You  mean  if  a  man  takes  a  drink  of  dilute  alcohol  it 
will  have  one  effect  physiologically,  and  if  he  take*  a  drink  of 
the  other,  which  you  call  Whisky,  it  will  have  a  different  effect 
physiologically? 

Prof.  Ladd :  The  principal  constituent  is  ethyl  alcohol,  and  that  is 
the  most  active. 

Mr.  Hough :  I  will  ask  you  if,  in  your  opinion,  there  would  be  an 
effect  physiologically  different? 

Prof.  Ladd:  //  you  will  allow  me  to  answer  in  my  own  way,  I 
will  do  so. 

Mr.  Hough :    So  long  as  we  are  not  hurried. 

Prof.  Ladd :  I  will  state  this,  that  in  those  places  where  that  kind 
of  a  DOPE  has  been  used,  I  have  found  that  the  men  who  be- 
come drunk  are  the  worst  kind  of  drunks. 

The  Solicitor-General :     That  is  not  the  question. 

This  scientist,  who  was  brought  forward  to  assist  the  Solicitor- 
General,  was  so  deeply  interested  in  the  public  welfare  that  he  had 
to  call  the  purest  Whisky  by  the  opprobrious  slang  term — DOPE. 


PROF.  HARRY  E.  BARNARD — Chemist  of  the  State  Board 
of  Health  of  Indiana. 

It  being  pointed  out  to  him  that  the  "Stan- 
dard" for  Scotch  Whisky  adopted  by  his 
Committee,  stipulates  that  Scotch  Whisky 
must  be  made  from  peat-dried  malt,  he  was 
asked  whether  he  would  exclude  Whisky 
made  in  Scotland  without  the  use  of  peat,  if 
it  were  true,  (as  it  is) ,  that  Whisky  had  long 
been  so  made  there ;  his  answer  was :  "I  do 
not  know  whether  I  should  or  not." 

He  said :  "The  only  Whisky  I  recognize  is  a 
Whisky  matured  in  wood  for  four  years." 

88 


The  Solicitor-General  asked  him  why  a 
genuine  Whisky  might  not  be  sold  new;  he 
answered:  "Because  WE  have  decided  that 
to  have  the  name  WHISKY  it  should  have 
a  certain  character." 

This  witness  differed  radically  from  Doctor  Wiley  and  others  as 
to  STRAIGHT  WHISKY  being  the  only  Whisky,  and  the  only  one  recog- 
nized as  genuine  by  the  Trade. 

Mr.  Taylor :    According  to  your  experience,  what  did  they  regard 

as  Whisky? 

Prof.  Barnard :  Some  of  the  wholesalers  had  the  ordinary  opinion 
held  by  the  trade  as  to  what  a  Whisky  was.  Others  considered 
only  Whisky  to  be  that  product  which  we  now  call  "Straight 
Whisky." 

The  Solicitor-General:  In  fact,  the  word  "Straight"  rather 
recognizes  that  there  may  be  another  kind  of  whisky;  other- 
wise, there  would  not  be  any  necessity  to  use  the  word 
"Straight"  as  a  classification? 

Prof.  Barnard:  They  found  it  necessary  to  distinguish  it  from 
the  other  kinds. 


Mr.  McCabe :    You  participated  in  the  making  of  the  "standards" 

at  Mackinac? 
Prof.  Barnard :    Yes. 
Mr.  McCabe:     And  I  believe  you  made  a  standard  there  for 

Scotch  Whisky? 

Prof.  Barnard :    /  do  not  remember. 

Mr.  McCabe :    I  will  show  it  to  you  and  let  you  read  from  it. 
Prof.  Barnard:     (after  examination)  Yes,  sir;  we  did. 
Mr.  McCabe:     Do  you  happen  to  know  how  many  recognized 

kinds  of  Scotch  Whisky  there  are? 
Prof.  Barnard:    No. 


Mr.  McCabe:  Now,  do  you  say  you  ruled  against  certain  whis- 
kies in  your  New  Hampshire  work  because  they  were  not  gen- 
uine whiskies? 

89 


Prof.  Barnard:    Yes. 

Mr.   McCabe:     Do  you  mean  by  that,  because  they  were  not 

"Straight  Whiskies?" 
Prof.  Barnard :    No;  as  I  said,  because  they  were  low  in  alcoholic 

strength;  because  they  had  been  sweetened  by  the  addition  of 

sugar. 
Mr.  Maxwell:     Then  anything  that  had  caramel  prtsent — that 

made  it,  in  your  opinion,  not  Whisky  ? 
Prof.  Barnard :    It  made  it  not  Whisky. 


Mr.   Carlisle:     Did  you  ever  see  a  bottle  or  a  barrel  marked 

"Rectified  Whisky?" 
Prof.  Barnard :    I  never  did. 
Mr.  Carlisle:     Did  you  ever  see  a  bottle  or  a  barrel  marked 

"Continuous  Distilled  Whisky?" 
Prof.  Barnard:     No,  sir. 
Mr.  Carlisle:     Did  you  ever  see  a  bottle  or  a  barrel,  in  your 

whole  experience  j  marked  "Neutral  Spirit  Whisky?" 
Prof.  Barnard:     No,  sir. 

Mr.  Maxwell:     Did  you  ever  see  a  bottle  marked  "Straight 
Whisky?" 

Prof.  Barnard:     /  do  not  remember. 

The  manifest  object  of  Mr.  Carlisle's  questions  was  to  imply 
that  there  had  been  suppression  of  qualifying  terms  on  the  part  of  the 
makers  of  the  REFINED  WHISKIES,  and  that  their  failure  to  use  such 
qualifying  terms  indicated  their  desire  to  keep  from  the  public  knowl- 
edge to  which  the  public  was  entitled. 

This  was  a  curious  suggestion  to  come  from  the  counsel  of  those 
distillers  who,  entering  the  field  in  recent  times  with  an  entirely 
new  variety  of  Whisky,  to  distinguish  which  from  the  much  older 
variety  they  themselves  chose  the  qualifying  term  "Straight,"  had 
neglected  to  brand  their  product  accordingly  for  the  information  of 
the  public. 

Doctor  Wiley  himself  said  that  people  knew  nothing  about 
"Straight  Whisky."  (See  Chapter  XII— question  131). 

Mr.  Taylor,  the  leader  of  the  "Straight  Whisky"  party  in  this 
fight,  did  not  take  kindly  to  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Choate  that  he 

90 


and  his  friends  should  label  their  product  "Straight  Whisky"  for  the 
public  benefit.     (See  Chapter  II) 

Mr.  A.  J.  Sunstein,  a  Pennsylvania  distiller  and  Wholesale  Liquor 
Dealer  for  thirty  years,  whose  knowledge  of  the  subject  was,  perhaps, 
but  little  inferior  to  the  "whole  experience"  of  Prof.  Barnard,  said 
before  the  Solicitor-General:  "I  have  never  seen  any  labels,  that 
I  can  recollect,  that  had  the  word  'Straight'  on  them." 


PROF.  EDWARD  H.  JENKINS — Examiner  of  Food  Prod- 
ucts, Connecticut. 

He  declared  Caramel  coloring  to  be  adulter- 
ation— 

But  he  admitted  that  he  did  not  know  the  history  of  col- 
oring Whisky. 

He  said  that  if  he  knew  that  Caramel  was 
used  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  char- 
red barrels,  he  did  not  think  that  knowledge 
would  alter  his  convictions. 

He  did  not  know  the  meaning  of  HIGH 
WINES. 

He  admitted  his  inability  to  tell  Whisky 
from  Brandy. 

He  said  the  addition  of  a  small  amount  of 
ALCOHOL  to  WHISKY  would  not  deprive  it 
of  the  name  WHISKY— 

Differing  entirely  from  Dr.  Wiley,  who  declared  that 
the  addition  of  a  single  drop  of  ALCOHOL  would  make 
the  article  no  longer  WHISKY. 

Mr.  Carlisle:  Now,  what  have  the  consumers  regarded  as  being 
Whisky? 

Doctor  Jenkins :  As  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  find  the  opinion  of 
consumers,  their  opinion  of  Whisky  is  a  distillate  from  cereal 
grains  from  which  nothing  has  been  abstracted  in  the  process  of 
distillation,  but  which  has  been  aged  suitably  in  charred  barrels. 
They  will  not  knowingly  take  a  material  called  WHISKY  which 
is  not  of  that  description. 


Mr.  Lucking:  Was  not  there  a  very  intelligent  public,  that  you 
know  of  or  heard  of,  that  would  not  consume  the  "Straight 
Whiskies"  so-called,  and  did  not  like  them  ? 

Dr.  Jenkins:    /  never  heard  of  such  a  thing. 

Mr.  Lucking :  Did  you  designedly  intend  to  bring  this  about — that 
any  article  of  so-called  Whisky  which  contained  caramel  as 
coloring  should  not  be  allowed  the  name  of  WHISKY? 

Dr.  Jenkins :    Yes ;  it  is  excluded. 

Mr.  Lucking:  Notwithstanding  that  for  two  hundred  years 
caramel  had  been  used  as  the  principal  coloring  matter  for 
nearly  all  Whiskies  ? 

Dr.  Jenkins:    That  is  not  within  my  knowledge. 

Mr.  Lucking:  You  did  not  know  the  history  of  Whisky  in  that 
respect? 

Dr.  Jenkins:    No. 

Mr.  Lucking:  This  caramel  color  was  added  for  at  least  150 
years  before  the  charred-barrel  process  was  known,  according 
to  the  evidence.  Would  that  have  altered  your  convictions? 

Dr.  Jenkins:    /  do  not  think  so. 


DR.  L.  M.  TOLMAN — Chemist  in  the  Bureau  of  Chem- 
istry under  Dr.  Wiley. 

He  stated  that  there  had  been  no  idea  in  the 
Whisky  Trade  until  a  year  or  two  before 
that  NEUTRAL  SPIRIT  diluted  to  "proof"  was 
WHISKY. 

An  audacious  assertion,  this,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  a 
number  of  men  of  very  long  experience  had  already  testi- 
fied in  his  hearing  that  the  article  had  always  been  known 
as  WHISKY. 

He  said  that  the  addition  of  Caramel  color 
had  nothing  to  do  with  whether  an  article 
was  WHISKY  or  not — 

Emphatically  contradicting  his  fellow-witnesses — Wiley, 
Remington,  Fischer,  Ladd,  Barnard  and  Jenkins. 
92 


This  important  witness,  (Chief  of  the  Food  Inspection  Labora- 
tory) ,  testified  that  he  had  been  studying  the  subject  of  Whisky  for  five 
or  six  years:  that  he  had  made  many  hundred  analyses:  that  he  had 
visited  a  dozen  or  so  distilleries  in  Kentucky,  as  many  in  Pennsylvania, 
quite  a  number  in  Maryland,  and  others  in  Illinois,  Tennessee  and 
Canada. 

And  the  sum  total  of  his  practical  knowledge  is  well  indicated  by 
the  following  lucid  extract  from  his  cross-examination — 

Mr.  Hough :  What  is  this  little  pipe  running  from  the  condenser 
back  into  the  chambered  still  ? 

Mr.  Tolman :  I  have  forgotten  what  they  call  it.  It  drains  the 
bottom  of  the  heater. 

Mr.  Hough :    Drains  out  what? 

Mr.  Tolman :    What  condenses  in  there. 

Mr.  Hough:    What  condenses  there? 

Mr.  Tolman :    The  vapors  that  come  over  from  here  (indicating). 

Mr.  Hough :  But  which  vapors — the  vapors  that  have  the  high- 
est boiling  point  or  the  lowest  boiling  point  ? 

Mr.  Tolman:    /  should  think — 

Mr.  Hough:    Which  vapor  is  condensed  first? 

Mr.  Tolman :    /  do  not  think — 

Mr.  Hough:  Do  you  mean  to  say  there  is  no  difference  in  the 
vapors  that  are  condensed? 

Mr.  Tolman :    i  DO  NOT  KNOW. 

Mr.  Hough :    Then  you  cannot  say  what  is  returned  there  ? 

Mr.  Tolman:     NO. 

And  this  witness,  who  knew  nothing  about  one  of  the  commonest 
parts  of  the  distilling  apparatus,  and  required  all  those  questions  to 
draw  out  the  admission  of  his  ignorance,  had  the  assurance  to  suggest, 
on  the  strength  of  his  experience,  that  practical  distillers  did  not  know 
what  they  were  about.  Read  this — 

Mr,  Hough:  Have  you  ever  seen  a  statement  in  any  literature, 
that  it  is  the  heads  and  tails,  constituting  the  feints,  which  con- 
tain the  largest  amount  of  these  "congenerics  ?" 

Mr.  Tolman :    I  have. 

Mr.  Hough:    And  you  disagree  with  it? 

93 


*    Mr.  Tolman :    I  DO. 

Mr.  Hough :  Then  all  the  distillery  operations,  where  they  cut  out 
the  heads  and  tails  to  exclude  some  of  those,  were  futile  opera- 
tions in  your  opinion? 

Mr.  Tolman :  In  my  opinion  they  do  not  cut  them  out  to  exclude 
anything.  That  is  my  experience  with  distillers,  that  they  cut 
them  out  to  get  the  proof  up,  and — 

Mr.  Hough :    I  am  not  talking — 

Mr.  Tolman:  /  want  to  answer  the  question  in  my  own  way. 
They  cut  them  off  for  that,  and  they  also  cut  them  off  to  clean 
out  the  worm,  when  the  thing  starts  over  again,  and  there  are  a 
few  places  have  got  theories  as  to  what  they  do  when  they  cut 
off  the  heads.  Some  of  them  want  to  have  them  all  in.  One 
man  makes  a  great  specialty  of  putting  them  all  in — thinks  he 
gets  a  better  product.  I  DO  NOT  THINK  THEY  HAVE  GOT  VERY 

MUCH  IDEA  WHAT  THEY  ARE  CUTTING  OFF  FOR.     THAT  IS  MY 
EXPERIENCE. 

Moreover,  this  modest  gentleman  ventured,  on  the  strength  of  his 
experience,  to  impugn  the  veracity  of  fourteen  witnesses  of  special  and 
practical  experience,  who  had  previously  testified — 

Mr.  McCabe:     Have  you  known,  or  do  you  know,  that  by  the 

manufacturer   or   the  wholesaler  and   the   rectifier   "neutral 

spirits,"  so-called,  diluted  to  proof  and  colored  and  flavored,  or 

simply  colored,  is  regarded  as  WHISKY? 
Mr.    Tolman :    I  think  that  as  far  as  my  experience  goes  I  have 

never  met  a  man,  that  I  considered  honestly  to  tell  the  truth, 

that  thought  so. 


MR.  ARTHUR  B.  ADAMS — Government  Chemist. 

Said  there  was  no  difficulty  in  distinguishing 
"Straight  Whisky"  from  Whisky  made  from 
"Neutral  Spirit." 

But  from  the  analysis  of  a  "Straight  Whisky"  made  by 
Dr.  L.  M.  Tolman,  (who  himself  selected  the  Whisky), 
Mr.  Adams  said  he  would  not  consider  it  Whisky  at  all. 

Mr.  Carlisle:     Is  there  any  difficulty  about  distinguishing  these 
articles  one  from  the  other? 

94 


Mr.  Adams:    No,  sir.    Chemically,  of  course,  you  mean. 

Mr.  Carlisle:  Yes;  between  what  we  call  WHISKY  and  what  is 
called  WHISKY  on  the  other  side,  which  is  neutral  spirits  di- 
luted to  proof.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  distinguishing  them  ? 

Mr.  Adams:    No,  sir;  there  is  no  difficulty  in  distinguishing  them. 

Mr.  Lucking :  Would  you  kindly  tell  us  what  this  analysis  which 
I  will  read  you  shows — whether  a  neutral  spirit  or  whisky? 
(reads) 

Mr.  Adams:  (after  making  calculation)  THAT  is  NOT  WHISKY, 
IN  MY  OPINION. 

Mr.  Lucking:  Will  you  state  whether  this  analysis  shows  a 
neutral  spirit  or  whisky?  (reads) 

Mr.  Adams:    (after  making  calculation)   That  might  be  a  whisky. 

Mr.  Lucking :    //  might  be? 

Mr.  Adams:    Yes,  sir;  it  is  not  neutral  spirits. 

Mr.  Lucking :  The  first  one  is  sample  2689  of  Doctor  Tolman's 
book,  here,  WHICH  HE  CALLS  A  WHISKY — "Sour  mash  straight 
whisky."  HE  TESTIFIED  TO  THAT. 

And  this  Expert  agreed  with  Expert  Tolman  as  to  the  ignorance  of 
practical  distilling  on  the  part  of  practical  distillers — 

Doctor  Wiley:  There  is  a  common  impression,  is  there  not,  among 
distillers,  that  the  fusel  oil  is  just  in  the  inverse  proportion  to 
that? 

Mr.  Adams:    Yes,  sir;  there  is  that  impression. 

Doctor  Wiley:  Your  examinations,  then,  corroborate  the  results 
of  Doctor  Tolman,  that  the  highest  fusel  oil  content  accom- 
panies the  highest  ethyllic  alcohol  content? 

Mr.  Adams:    Yes,  sir. 

Doctor  Wiley:    Instead  of  the  opposite,  as  has  been  commonly  sup- 
posed? 
Mr.  Adams:    Yes. 

Doctor  Wiley:  Then,  if  you  should  take  a  part  from  the  middle 
part  of  the  run,  it  would  have  more  fusel  oil  in  it,  would  it  not, 
than  a  part  taken  from  near  the  end  of  the  run  ? 

Mr.  Adams:    Yes,  sir. 

95 


Doctor  Wiley :  Is  not  that  contrary  to  the  usual  understanding  of 
distillers  in  that  matter? 

Mr.  Adams:    Yes,  sir. 

Doctor  Wiley:  Your  results  corroborate  the  results  of  Doctor 
Tolman,  that  the  common  acceptation  on  the  part  of  the  distill- 
ert  which  has  so  often  been  presented  here,  that  the  lower  proof 
contains  the  greater  amount  of  fusel  oil,  is  incorrect? % 

Mr.  Adams :    Yes,  sir. 

Mr.  Maxwell :  Of  course,  this  must  be  very  valuable  testimony — 
a  subordinate  in  the  department  just  having  answers  put  in  his 
mouth  by  the  chief  of  the  department.  I  just  want  to  call  at- 
tention to  it. 

The  Solicitor-General:    /  note  that  fact. 


96 


CHAPTER  XIV 

The  Inconstant  Whisky  "Standards"  of     octor  Wiley 
and  the  Chemists  who  Followed  His  Lead 

These  "Standards"  were  adopted  by  two  Associations  composed 
of  Official  Chemists  and  Food  Officials,  but  having  no  legal  author- 
ity whatever.  The  "Standards"  were  acted  upon  by  Dr.  Wiley,  in 
practical  defiance  of  Congress,  which  had  been  asked,  and  had  de- 
clined, to  authorize  the  making  of  Food  Standards. 

These  "Standards"  were  the  recommendation  of  a  Committee 
which  included  Prof.  Fischer  (Chairman),  Dr.  Wiley,  Prof.  Barnard 
and  Dr.  Jenkins,  whose  testimony  herein  given  shows  their  extraor- 
dinary unfitness  for  the  work.  (See  Chapters  XII  and  XIII,  and 
page  19). 

The  Associations  did  not  appear  at  the  first  hearing  by  President 
Taft,  or  the  investigation  which  he  ordered.  We  know  of  no  reason 
why  they  should  appear  at  any  time:  but  at  the  Presidential  hearing 
following  the  Solicitor-General's  Report,  two  gentlemen  introduced 
themselves  as  representatives  of  the  Associations,  and  requested  leave 
to  speak.  The  President  heard  one  of  them ;  and,  as  time  would  not 
permit  of  even  all  the  counsel  engaged  in  the  case  making  oral  argu- 
ments, the  President  requested  all  parties,  (including  the  Associa- 
tions), to  submit  Briefs. 

The  Brief  of  the  Associations,  and  the  "Standards" 
in  support  of  which  it  was  presented,  were  commented 
on  by  us  in  our  Reply  Brief  to  the  President,  as  fol- 
lows: 

"Some  members  of  these  Associations,  and  of  the  Standards  Com- 
mittees thereof,  were  upon  the  witness  stand;  but,  after  the  first  one 
or  two  were  cross-examined,  no  attempt  was  made  to  defend  these 
'standards.'  They  appeared  so  ludicrous,  and  were  based  upon  such 
utter  ignorance  of  the  business  and  the  facts,  that  nobody  attempted 
to  support  or  justify  them. 

"Even  Dr.  Wiley,  who  is  popularly  believed  to  be  responsible  for 
the  parentage  of  these  'standards'  and  their  adoption  by  the  socie- 
ties, attempted  no  defense  of  them  whatever. 
i 

97 


"And  yet,  these  'standards'  that  appeared  so  ludicrous  in  the 
judicial  enquiry,  are  what  the  Food  Officials  have  been  working  to; 
and  they  have  formed  the  basis  for  outlawing  and  condemning  ninety- 
five  per  cent  of  the  whisky  of  the  country,  including  the  most  popular, 
famous  and  expensive  Blends. 

;'  'Standards'  which  were  recommended  for  adoption  by  the  Gov- 
ernment, but  which  the  Government  did  not,  and  could  not,  adopt, 
have  to  all  intents  and  purposes  been  made  Government  Standards, 
because  the  Government  Officers  have  condemned  everything  which 
did  not  conform  thereto. 

"The  author  of  these  'standards'  remains  incognito,  though  wit- 
ness after  witness  was  asked  who  the  real  father  was. 

"Prof.  Shepard,  whose  name  is  signed  to  this  Brief,  certainly  could 
not  have  been  the  author,  for  he  is  on  record  against  the  adoption  of 
any  such  standards. 

"And  yet,  in  spite  of  this,  the  name  of  the  learned  gentleman  is 
signed  to  this  Brief,  (whose  authorship  is  a  matter  of  much  curiosity) , 
urging  the  President  to  give  Executive  endorsement  to  these  'stan- 
dards.' 

"These  gentlemen  say  they  made  investigations  and  analyses,  and 
from  them  they  framed  these  'standards.' 

"But  those  members  of  the  Association  who  have  been  on  the  wit- 
ness stand,  admit  that  they  selected  certain  whiskies  as  a  criterion  and 
made  their  'standards'  from  them.  The  whiskies  so  selected  were 
all  bottled-in-bond,  or  'Straight,'  whiskies. 

"Now,  of  what  value  is  their  evidence,  or  their  'standards?'  What 
right  had  they,  (in  almost  utter  ignorance  of  the  whisky  business), 
to  select  certain  brands,  and  these  all  of  one  type,  and  make  them 
the  'standard?'  And  why  did  they  select  the  type  least  popular 
with  the  public? 

"What  right  had  they  to  pick  out  whiskies  which  only  one  con- 
sumer in  twenty  drinks,  pronounce  these  the  only  whiskies,  and  there- 
by utterly  ignore  and  overrule  the  great  popular  judgment? 

"The  evidence  showed : 

(1)  That  approximately  75%  of  all  the  whisky  of  America 

is    BLENDED  WHISKY. 

(2)  That  20%  is  the  NEUTRAL  SPIRIT  WHISKY. 

(3)  That  5%  is  STRAIGHT  WHISKY. 

98 


"In  forming  a  definition  or  formulating  a  'standard'  for  WHISKY 
in  America,  what  right  had  any  body,  or  any  person,  to  accept  or 
create  as  a  'standard'  anything  but  that  which  was  accepted  by  the 
great  body  of  the  American  people? 

"What  is  the  real  motive?    We  have  it  revealed  in  this  Brief. 

We  quote : 

'The  addition  of  Neutral  Spirit  is  for  the  purpose  of 
'evading  the  cost  of  ageing.  In  this  addition  of  new  Neu- 
'tral  Spirit  to  aged  Whisky,  which  is  the  only  practical 
'question  at  issue,1  there  is  a  dilution  of  not  only  what 
'has  been  called  the  "congeners,"  but  also  a  dilution  of  the 
'coloring  obtained  by  long  standing  and  maturing,2  and 
'a  dilution  of  all  that  goes  to  make  up  flavor  in  an  aged 
'whisky.' 

"They  want  a  definition  adopted  which  ignores  history,  ignores 
usage,  ignores  universal  practice,  and  substitutes  their  fanciful  ideas  off 
what  ought  to  be  whisky. 

"And  what  for?  Why  simply  to  compel  ageing  for  four  years. 
And  why  do  they  want  it  aged  for  four  years?  Is  it  because  of  public 
health  ?  No.  Is  it  because  of  public  advantage  ?  No.  Is  it  to  give 
the  public  a  more  wholesome  article  to  drink  ?  No. 

"It  is  simply  because  that  portion  of  the  Trade  which  they  favor  is 
obliged,  in  order  to  make  their  whisky  drinkable  at  all,  to  age  it  four 
years ;  and  as  this  is  very  expensive,  it  is  desired  to  compel  all  to  con- 
form to  this  rule. 

"These  societies  first  adopted  a  set  of  'standards'  at  Jamestown  in 
1907,  after  they  had  been  tentatively  proposed  some  six  months  before 
at  a  meeting  held  at  Louisville,  Ky.  These  Jamestown  'standards' 
were  utterly  repudiated  in  many  of  the  most  important  parts  by  the 
same  societies,  only  about  ten  months  later,  at  Mackinac  Island,  in 
August,  1908. 

"For  illustration:  The  Jamestown  'standards'  established  an 
article  known  as  'RECTIFIED  WHISKY'  and  defined  what  it  was  or 
should  be.  This  was  totally  eliminated  at  Mackinac,  and  the  most 
searching  examination  of  such  members  of  the  societies  as  testified 
before  the  Solicitor-General,  failed  to  reveal  why  the  article  which 

lAlthough  Dr.  Wiley  and  the  Associations  agreed  as  to  what  the  "Standards"  should  be,  they  are  wholly 
at  variance  as  to  why  there  should  be  "Standards." 

Dr.  Wiley  says  to  insure  the  presence  of  Fusel  Oil. 

The  Associations  say  to  prevent  the  mixture  of  new  spirit  with  old  spirit. 
2The  fallacy  of  this  is  exposed  at  page  22. 

99 


had  been  so  solemnly  and  deliberately  defined  and  standardized  at 
Jamestown  should  utterly  disappear  in  the  course  of  ten  months. 

"Another  illustration :  The  Jamestown  'standards'  defined  BOUR- 
BON WHISKY  as  a  whisky  made  from  a  mash  of  Indian  Corn  and  Barley 
and  Malt,  of  which  Indian  Corn  forms  more  than  50%.  It  will  thus 
be  seen  that  under  the  Jamestown  'standards'  Bourbon  whisky  could 
be  made  anywhere;  but,  through  some  mysterious  influence,  when  the 
later  'standards'  were  adopted  at  Mackinac,  they  provided  that  BOUR- 
BON WHISKY  could  be  made  only  in  the  State  of  Kentucky. 

"Another  illustration:  The  Jamestown  'standards'  provided  that 
SCOTCH  WHISKY  must  have  a  smoky  flavor  derived  from  burnt  peat; 
but  at  Mackinac  this  was  cut  out. 

"Another  illustration:  At  Jamestown  these  societies  adopted  a 
fixed  maximum  of  congeneric  substances;  thus  they  held  that  any 
whisky  containing  more  than  a  certain  proportion  of  congeneric  sub- 
stances was  not  whisky.  At  Mackinac  Island  these  maximums  were 
all  cut  out. 

"Another  most  striking  thing  about  the  'standards'  so  adopted  at 
Mackinac  is  that  the  definition  of  DISTILLED  SPIRITS  is  such  that  it 
will  exclude  any  grain  spirit  but  STRAIGHT  WHISKY;  so  that  NEUTRAL 
SPIRIT  WHISKY  could  not  even  be  called  DISTILLED  SPIRITS  under 
these  fantastic  'standards.' 


SOCIETIES  GIVE  THE  MOST  CAREFUL  STUDY  TO  ALL  FOOD 
QUESTIONS  WITH  WHICH  THEY  DEAL;  AND  THEY  STATE 
THAT  THE  SUBJECT  OF  SPIRITUOUS  LIQUORS  WAS  TAKEN 
UP  MORE  THAN  NINE  YEARS  AGO. 

"Let  us  see  what  this  means. 

"Nine  years  ago  would  be  seven  years  before  the  Jamestown  'Stan- 
dards' were  adopted. 

"And  the  outcome  of  that  seven  years'  study  resulted  in  conclusions 
which  held  good  for  only  ten  months. 

"This  suggests  a  little  problem  in  proportion,  viz. :  If  ten  months' 
study  upset  the  conclusions  of  seven  years'  previous  study,  at  what  time 
in  the  future  may  these  societies  feel  reasonably  sure  that  they  know 
what  they  are  doing? 

"EIGHT  YEARS'  CAREFUL  AND  CONSCIENTIOUS  INVESTIGA- 
TION (PREVIOUS  TO  ADOPTING  THE  LATER  'STANDARDS') 
FORSOOTH  ! 

100 


"Which  horn  of  the 

"i.  Was  their  investigation  really  such  as  the  importance  of  the 
subject  demanded,  or  was  it  not? 

"2.  If  it  was,  did  they  try  to  give  effect  to  the  ascertained  facts, 
or  did  they  not? 

"Such  chopping  and  changing  of  'standards'  would  play  havoc  with 
business  of  any  kind,  even  in  articles  made  for  immediate  consumption. 

"But  what  would  become  of  manufacturers  who  make  goods  to-day 
for  use  years  hence? 

"If,  under  the  Jamestown  'standards,'  one  had  made  RECTIFIED 
WHISKY  for  ageing,  the  ten  months  later  'standards'  would  have 
thrown  it  out  of  the  market. 

"If,  under  the  Jamestown  'standards,'  one  had  made  BOURBON 
WHISKY  in  Pennsylvania,  as  he  would  be  at  liberty  to  do,  he  would 
have  found  it  outlawed  a  few  months  after. 

"It  is  simply  pitiable  that  a  group  of  chemists  should  have  arro- 
gated to  themselves,  not  only  to  play  with  enormous  trade  interests, 
which  they  knew  little  or  nothing  about,  but  also  to  act  upon  their 
own  interpretation  of  a  statute  which,  to  their  knowledge,  lawyers  of 
national  reputation  construed  in  quite  a  different  way. 

"It  is  explained  that  the  'standards'  were  changed  at  Mackinac 
because  of  'facts  developed  by  the  completion  of  certain  investigations.' 
These  were  not  new  investigations  then,  but  investigations  current 
when  the  previous  Standards'  were  adopted. 

"Will  these  gentlemen  please  further  explain  what  sort  of  delibera- 
tive body  would  dare  to  legislate  in  a  manner  vital  to  enormous  busi- 
ness interests,  before  their  investigations  on  the  subject  were  com- 
pletedr 


101 


CHAPTER  XV 
Eminent  Chemists  Differ  from  Doctor  Wiley 

(Extracts  from  the  testimony  before  the  Solicitor -Central.) 

The  frankness,  clearness  and  saneness  of  these  witnesses  saves 
one's  respect  for  "scientific"  evidence  after  that  of  Doctor  Wiley, 
Professor  Remington,  Professor  Fischer,  Professor  Ladd,  Professor 
Jenkins  and  Doctor  Tolman. 

Messrs.  Chandler,  Dunlap,  Sadtler  and  Schidrowitz  were  not 
called  with  the  object  of  proving  what  WHISKY  is,  because  President 
Taft  ordered  the  Official  Enquiry  upon  the  ground  that  that  question 
"is  to  be  properly  determined  only  after  consideration  of  competent  evi- 
"dence  drawn  from  those  familiar  with  the  trade  in  which  liquors  are 
"manufactured  and  sold."  ( See  Chapter  VI. ) 

They  were  called  to  show  the  utter  fallacy  of  the  assumption 
that  chemists  are  specially  qualified  to  pass  judgment  on  almost 
every  product,  natural  or  artificial;  to  show  how  radically  chemists 
differ  on  the  subject  of  Whisky.  If,  however,  it  had  been  foreseen 
how  thoroughly  Doctor  Wiley  and  his  "scientific"  supporters  would 
discredit  themselves,  no  professional  witnesses  would  have  been 
brought  against  them. 

These  gentlemen,  unlike  Doctor  Wiley  and  the  chemists  sup- 
porting him,  did  not  assume  an  encyclopaedic  attitude,  and  then  have 
to  confess  ignorance  of  the  rudiments  of  the  subject.  They  did  not  pre- 
tend to  know  more  about  Whisky  than  the  men  who  had  made  it  and 
dealt  in  it  for  long  periods. 

These  gentlemen  did  not  have  to  defend  their  views  by  grotesque 
inventions — such  as  Doctor  Wiley's  assertion  that  Whisky  is  a 
natural  product  as  much  as  Honey:  that  what  had  been  repeatedly 
described  by  himself  as  a  substance,  and  expressed  in  figures,  was 
a  smell. 

These  gentlemen  did  not  appear  as  pronounced  antagonists  of  an 
article  long  known  as  WHISKY,  and  pronounced  partizans  of  an  article 
known  for  a  much  shorter  time  as  WHISKY. 


That  Doctor  Wiley  understood  the  significance  of  this  "profes- 
sional" opposition  is  apparent  from  the  fact  that  he  and  his  subordi- 
nate, Doctor  Tolman,  cross-examined  these  witnesses  at  extraordinary 
length — Doctor  Wiley  putting  over  five  hundred  questions,  and 
Doctor  Tolman  about  eighty. 


PROF.  CHARLES  F.  CHANDLER— Prof essor  of  Chemistry  at 
Columbia  University  for  forty-five  years:  Chemist  of 
the  Health  Department  of  New  York  City  for  several 
years,  and  President  thereof  for  eleven  years.  Mr. 
Lawrence  Maxwell,  formerly  Solicitor-General,  said — 
"Professor  Chandler  is  the  Dean  of  the  profession  in  the 
United  States." 

Professor  Chandler  stated  that  he  began  the  investigation  of  food 
and  food  adulterations  about  1866:  that  he  was  employed  by  the 
Metropolitan  Board  of  Excise  to  investigate  the  liquors  sold  in  New 
York  City:  that  he  had  had  occasion  to  investigate  the  subject  of 
WHISKY,  had  a  Whisky  still  on  a  small  scale  in  his  laboratory,  and 
had  made  a  series  of  experiments  on  making  Whisky  under  different 
conditions. 

Mr.  Hough:    What,  in  your  opinion,  is  the  proper  definition  of 

WHISKY? 
Prof.  Chandler:     Any  distilled  spirit  manufactured  from  grain. 

The  Solicitor-General:  It  is  your  opinion  that  pure  ethyl 
alcohol  when  made  from  grain,  if  diluted  to  proof,  but  not 
otherwise  treated,  is  WHISKY? 

Prof.  Chandler:  Yes;  that  represents  one  extreme.  It  is  the 
end  of  the  series. 

Mr.  Hough:    To  what  is  the  flavor  of  most  whiskies  due — the 

characteristic  flavor?1 
Prof.  Chandler :    To  the  tar  that  comes  out  of  the  charred  barrel. 


DR.  FREDK.  L.  DUNLAP — Associate  Chemist  of  the  Bureau 
of  Chemistry:2  formerly  Professor  of  Chemistry  at  the 
University  of  Michigan. 

iThis  refers,  of  course,  only  to  whiskies  a^ed  in  charred  barrels.    It  should  be  added,  that  it  is  only  deep- 
ly Marred  barrels,  such  as  are  used  for  "Straight  Whisky,"  which  zive  so  pronounced  a  flavor. 
2His  associate  is  Dr.  Wiley. 

I03 


Mr.  McCabe:  Were  you  a  member  of  an  Administrative  Com- 
mission that  was  instructed  to  investigate  the  labelling  of 
whisky  ? 

Doctor  Dunlap:    I  was. 

Mr.  McCabe:  Have  you  investigated  to  any  extent  the  making 
of  whisky  in  countries  other  than  the  United  States? 

Doctor  Dunlap:  Yes;  I  spent  some  time  in  looking* into  the 
methods  of  manufacture  of  whisky  in  Scotland  and  Ireland 
last  summer. 

Mr.  McCabe:  Have  you  made  a  search  of  the  literature  to  de- 
termine the  historical  usage  of  the  name  WHISKY,  and  the 
product  to  which  it  has  been  applied  ? 

Doctor  Dunlap :    Yes ;  I  have. 

Mr.  McCabe :    What  did  that  investigation  show  ? 

Doctor  Dunlap:  I  came  to  the  conclusion  from  the  investigation 
I  made  of  the  literature,  that  the  term  WHISKY  had  for  many 
years  been  applied  to  a  distilled  spirit  from  a  mash  of  grain, 
which  was  colored  and  flavored — both  colored  and  flavored. 

The  Solicitor-General:  Do  you  mean  any  spirit  distilled  from 
grain  ? 

Doctor  Dunlap:    From  cereals. 

The  Solicitor-General:     Including  what  has  been  here  so  much 

Called  NEUTRAL  SPIRIT? 

Doctor  Dunlap :    Any  distilled  spirit. 

The  Solicitor-General:    That  is  practically  ALCOHOL? 

Doctor  Dunlap:    Yes. 

Mr.  Carlisle:  So  that  from  the  literature  which  you  have  read 
you  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  term  WHISKY  had  been 
applied  to  NEUTRAL  SPIRITS  diluted  with  water,  colored  and 
flavored  ? 

Doctor  Dunlap :    Yes,  sir. 

Mr.  Carlisle:  If  not  colored  and  flavored,  what  was  the  result 
of  your  investigation? 

Doctor  Dunlap:    If  not  colored  and  flavored,  but  simply  diluted? 

Mr.  Carlisle:    Yes. 

Doctor  Dunlap:  I  have1  seen  no  statements  in  the  literature 
directly  to  that  point ;  but  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  a  NEUTRAL 
SPIRIT  which  is  diluted  to  a  potable  strength  is  as  much 
104 


entitled  to  the  name  WHISKY  as  STRAIGHT  WHISKY  is  before 
it  receives  the  artificial  color  and  flavor  from  the  charred 
package* 

The  Solicitor-General:  Do  you  insist  on  the  charred  barrel  as 
essential  to  whisky? 

Doctor  Dunlap :    By  no  means. 

The  Solicitor-General:  Then,  do  you  regard  its  contribution 
in  the  way  of  flavor  as  a  distinctive  feature  of  whisky? 

Doctor  Dunlap:     Only  of  American  Whisky. 

The  Solicitor-General :  Do  you  regard  it  as  distinctive  of  Ameri- 
can Whisky? 

Doctor  Dunlap:    Of  STRAIGHT  WHISKY. 

The  Solicitor-General:  Do  you  regard  it  as  distinctive  of  all 
American  STRAIGHT  WHISKIES? 

Doctor  Dunlap:     As  far  as  I  know. 

The  Solicitor-General:    But  only  STRAIGHT  WHISKIES,  you  say? 

Doctor  Dunlap:    Yes. 


PROF.  S.  P.  SADTLER — Professor  of  Chemistry,  Philadel- 
phia College  of  Pharmacy:  Consulting  Chemist: 
Teacher  of  Chemistry  for  thirty-eight  years. 

Mr.  Hough:  I  will  get  you  to  state  whether  or  not,  according 
to  your  knowledge  of  the  character  and  constituents  of  the 
so-called  STRAIGHT  WHISKIES,  any  one  of  them  complies  with 
the  definition  and  standard  in  the  Pharmacopoeia? 

Prof.  Sadtler :  Speaking  of  those  which  I  examined,  I  would  say 
that  they  have  more  than  a  trace  of  FUSEL  OIL  from  grain, 
which  is  indicated  as  the  amount  allowable  in  the  Pharma- 
copoeia. They  also — several  of  them,  at  all  events — have 
a  higher  amount  of  free  acid  than  is  allowed  in  the  Pharma- 
copoeia test.  In  these  two  respects  they  do  not  conform,  there- 
fore, with  the  Pharmacopoeial  requirements.2 

Mr.  Hough:  What  character  of  distilled  spirits  would,  in  your 
opinion,  more  nearly  conform  to  the  Pharmacopoeial  standard 
and  definition  of  WHISKY? 

iHis  associate.  Dr.  Wiley,  says  these  are  not  artificial. 

*He  is  a  member  of  the  Revision  Committee  of  the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia,  whose  Editor,  Professor  Rem- 
ington, said  that  "Straight  Whisky."  and  only  "Straight  Whish."  would  conform  to  its  requirements.  (See 
Chapter  XIII— page  79). 

105 


Prof.  Sadtler :  The  distilled  spirits  which  had  been  rectified  suffi- 
ciently to  eliminate  all  but  a  trace  of  FUSEL  OIL  would  more 
nearly  comply  with  what  is  here  stated?1 

Doctor  Tolman:  Do  you  think  then  that  this  test,  as  given 
in  the  Pharmacopoeia,  would  exclude  a  STRAIGHT  WHISKY  on 
that  account? 

Prof.  Sadtler:  //  would  exclude  such  samples  as  I  examined, 
certainly. 

Prof.  Sadtler,  who  is  a  member  of  the  Revision  Committee  of  the 
United  States  Pharmacopoeia,  having  made  the  following  statement: 
"The  idea  was  to  define  WHISKY  so  broadly  as  to  cover 
"the  best  commercial  grades  of  whisky,  and  the  committee 
"made  no  investigation  into  the  subject  of  the  origin  of 
"those  commercial  grades.     They  established  a  series  of 
"tests  which  they  supposed  were  sufficient  to  establish  the 
"purity  and  freedom  from  certain  ingredients  which  they 
11  considered  deleterious" — 

Doctor  Wiley  was  apparently  not  very  well  pleased  with  this 
testimony,  and  this  ensued: 

Doctor  Wiley:  You  spoke  about  what  in  the  minds  of  the  com- 
mittee was  the  best  commercial  grade  of  whisky.  I  ask 
you  now  whether  you  consider  a  whisky  made  by  a  whisky 
distiller  in  the  proper  method,  and  kept  in  a  whisky  bonded 
warehouse  for  four  years,  or  a  whisky  made  by  taking  neutral 
spirits,  diluting  them  to  proof,  and  coloring  and  flavoring 
them — which  do  you  consider  the  better  grade  of  commercial 
whisky? 

Prof.  Sadtler:  If  the  whisky  made,  as  you  call  it,  "in  the  proper 
way,"  is  high  in  these  ingredients  which  7  call  deleterious,  I 
would  not  consider  that  it  was  improved  by  the  maturing  and 
ageing,  or  that  it  complied  as  well  with  those  requirements  as 
the  other  whisky. 

Doctor  Wiley:  Which  would  you  consider  the  better  whisky 
upon  the  whole,  commercially  ? 

The  Solicitor-General :    THE  QUESTION  REALLY  is  NOT  RELEVANT. 

THE  ENQUIRY  HERE  IS  NOT  AS  TO  WHAT  IS  THE  best  WHISKY, 

OR  THE  better  WHISKY. 


iHe  is  a  member  of  the  Revision  Committee  of  the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia,  whose  Editor,  Professor  .Rem- 
ington, said  that  "Straight  Whisky,"  and  mly  "Straight  IPTiitky, "  would  conform  to  its  requirements.  (See 
Chapter  XIII— page  79). 

ic6 


Doctor  Wiley:    What  is  measured  there,  a  substance  or  a  smell, 

by  your  test  ? 

Prof.  Sadder:    A  SUBSTANCE.1 
Doctor  Wiley:     What  substance? 
Prof.  Sadder:    The  mixture  called  FUSEL  OIL. 


MR.  PHILIP  SCHIDROWITZ — London:  Analytical  and 
Consulting  Chemist:  Member  of  the  Chemical  Society 
and  the  Society  of  Public  Analysts:  Author  of  "Chem- 
istry of  Whisky,"  "Distillation  of  Whisky,"  "Applica- 
tion of  Science  to  the  Manufacture  of  Whisky,"  etc. 

Mr.  Hough:    Are  you  a  specialist  in  any  branch  of  chemistry? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:  Yes;  I  have  specialized  in  the  alcohol  indus- 
tries. 

Mr.  Hough:  Have  you  been. called  to  give  testimony  in  any 
government  enquiries  over  there?  , 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:  Yes;  I  was  called  before  the  Beer  Memorials 
Committee  in  1898.  I  was  called  before  the  Food  Preserva- 
tives Committee:  and  recently  gave  evidence  before  a  Royal 
Commission  On  Whisky  And  Other  Potable  Spirits.2 

Mr.  Hough :  What  special  researches  bearing  on  whisky  did  you 
make? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:  I  made  special  researches  on  the  chemistry  of 
whisky,  and  on  the  distillation  of  whisky,  and  of  various 
important  matters  coming  under  that  head. 

Mr.  Hough:  As  a  result  of  all  these  investigations  and  hear- 
ings, what  would  you  say  is  a  correct  definition  of  WHISKY? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:  I  should  say  that  WHISKY  is  a  potable  spirit 
distilled  from  grain,  obtained  by  any  of  the  processes  or  appa- 
ratus which  have  ever  been  commercially  employed  for  that 
purpose. 

The  Solicitor-General:  Then  you  base  your  idea  that  any  of 
these  substances  is  WHISKY  upon  the  fact  that  it  has  been 
accepted  as  such  by  the  public? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:    Yes. 


iHis  colleague  in  the  editing  of  the  Pharmacopoeia,  Professor  Remington,  says  it  is  a  smell.  (See  Chapter 
XIII— page  78). 

ZThere  were  no  contending  parties  before  this  Commission,  which  itself  selected  all  the  witnesses.  That 
fact  establishes  the  professional  rank  of  Dr.  Schidrowitz  in  England. 

107 


The  Solicitor-General:  Would  it  make  any  difference  in  your 
judgment,  as  to  whether  the  public  had  accepted  it  or  not, 
that  the  public  did  or  did  not  know  substantially  the  character 
of  the  article  in  fact? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:  No;  I  think  not.  /  think  the  public  know 
nothing  about  it.  I  do  not  know  whether  you  would  like  to 
have  my  view  as  to  what  the  public  generally  do  think,  because 
I  have  been  at  some  little  trouble  to  try  and  find  out,  not 
by  direct  questioning,  but  by  leading  them  on;  and  I  might 
say,  to  give  an  illustration  of  that,  a  neighbor  of  mine  in 
London,  who  is  a  lawyer  and  a  highly  educated  man,  when 
this  controversy  of  ours  was  going  on,  and  columns  on  the 
subject  were  appearing  in  the  papers — had  been  for  months, 
for  years  I  might  say — met  me  one  morning,  and  he  said: 
"What  is  this  'still'  whisky  I  hear  about?"  And  all  he 
appeared  to  have  inferred  from  that  whole  business  was  that 
there  seemed  to  his  mind  to  be  a  "still"  variety  of  whisky  and 
a  "sparkling"  variety  of  whisky.  That  was  all  that  was  con- 
veyed to  his  mind  by  the  word  "still."  In  fact,  the  only 
opinion  the  public  ever  have  about  WHISKY,  if  you  talk  to 
them,  is  that  they  jocularly  refer  to  FUSEL  OIL.  That  is  the 
only  definite  fact  I  ever  came  across* 

Mr.  Hough:  To  what  would  you  attribute  the  characteristic 
flavors  of  such  whiskies? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:    Which  whiskies? 

Mr.  Hough:  Our  so-called  STRAIGHT  WHISKIES,  aged  in  a 
charred  barrel. 

Mr.  Schidrowitz :  The  only  characteristic  flavor  that  I  have  been 
able  to  ascertain  is  what  is  due  to  the  charred  cask — the  flavor 
obtained  from  the  cask;  *  *  *  To  my  palate,  I  should 
say  practically  the  whole  of  it  was  due  to  that.  That  Rye 
Whisky  that  I  tasted  here  yesterday — that  new,  white  Rye 
Whisky — tasted  to  me  like  an  Irish  Whisky.  When  they 
have  been  in  the  charred  cask  the  flavor  is  entirely  different. 

The  Solicitor-General:  It  rather  struck  me  that  the  flavor  which 
I  rather  gathered  to  be  characteristic  of  the  charred  barrel  was 
so  predominant  as  to  swamp  almost  everything  else. 


1  Contrast  this  with  Doctor  Wiley '3  ridiculous  version  of  the  public  conception  of    WHISKY   (Chapter 
XII — question  2). 

108 


Mr.  Schidrowitz:     Exactly. 

Mr.  Hough:  Did  you  hear  Professor  Remington  state  that  the 
acidity  of  a  spirit  does  not  increase  with  age? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:    Yes. 

Mr.  Hough:    What  would  you  say  as  to  that? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:  /  would  say  that  Professor  Remington  is  quite 
wrong. 

Mr.  Hough:  You  have  heard  it  stated  that  a  substance  cannot 
change  its  name  by  virtue  of  some  treatment.  What  is  your 
view?1 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:  I  think  I  could  produce  thousands  of  examples 
where  a  substance  changes  its  name,  either  by  chemical  treat- 
ment, or  mechanical  treatment,  or  physiological  treatment. 
*  *  *  You  may  take,  say,  Liebig's  Extract  of  Meat,  and 
add  to  it  hot  water;  you  find  that  you  produce  soup  or  bouil- 
lon. 

Mr.  Hough:  Doctor  Wiley  brought  out  by  one  witness  some 
similes.  First,  he  brought  out  the  olive-oil  simile.  Do  you 
think  that  applies  to  the  issue? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:  /  do  not.  I  think  that  the  olive-oil  simile, 
and  the  maple-sugar  simile,  and  the  margarine,  are  all  good 
examples  of  false  analogies.  Take  olive-oil.  //  is  not  a 
change  of  material.  Olive-oil  is  obtained  by  purely  mechanical 
process  from  the  olive  by  separating  out  the  oil.  In  the  same 
way,  maple-syrup  is  obtained  from  the  maple  sap  by  a  simple 
process  of  concentration.  Now,  these  are,  in  my  opinion,  not 
manufactured  articles  in  the  sense  that  whisky  is  a  manu- 
factured article.  In  making  whisky  from  grain  you  convert, 
first  of  all,  the  starch  into  sugar.  The  sugar  is  an  entirely 
different  product  from  starch.  Secondly,  you  convert  that 
sugar  into  alcohol,  which  is,  again,  an  entirely  different  prod- 
uct.2 

And  I  think  there  can  be  no  difference  of  opinion  in  this 
regard ;  that  the  consumer  when  he  asks  for  olive-oil,  or  when 
he  asks  for  maple-syrup,  or  when  he  asks  for  butter,  knows 


iDoctor  Wiley  said— "The  addition  of  water  to  any  distilled  product  never  changes  its  name  or  character  or 
classification." 

ZDoctor  Wiley  declared  Whisky  to  be  an  "absolutely  natural  article,"  equally  with  Honey.  (See  Chapter 
III— paee  21). 

109 


pretty  well  what  he  means  and  what  he  expects  to  get;  he 
really  has  some  knowledge  of  it.  In  regard  to  WHISKY,  I 
think  he  has  no  knowledge. 

Moreover,  there  is  this  great  difference:  that  all  the  other 
articles  referred  to  are  foodstuffs.  Olive-oil  is  a  food.  Butter 
is  a  food.  Maple-syrup  is  a  food.  But  WHISKY  is  neither  a 
food  nor  is  it  a  drug;  nor  is  it  consumed  on  any  othenbasis  than 
that  of  its  flavor  and  alcoholic  strength? 

Mr.  Hough:  I  think  you  testified  something  as  to  the  opinion 
of  the  public  on  the  whisky  subject.  Do  you  know  what  the 
opinions  of  the  leading  chemists  are  on  the  subject? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:  Well,  I  think  that  the  opinion  of  chemists 
other  than  the  small  number  who  have  devoted  any  special  con- 
sideration to  this  matter — and  that  number  is  a  very  small  one 
— is  not  worth  much  more  than  that  of  any  other  intelligent 
member  of  the  public ;  but  the  chemists  I  come  in  contact  with 
generally  in  England,  (and  I  think  I  may  say  some  chemists 
over  here),  I  think  a  very  large  proportion  of  them  consider 
merely  that  WHISKY  is  a  spirit  distilled  from  grain  *  *  *2 

Mr.  Hough:  Are  NEUTRAL  SPIRITS  as  you  have  heard  them 
described  here,  and  WHISKY  as  you  have  heard  Doctor  Wiley 
define  it,  "like  substances?" 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:    /  think  sot  decidedly. 

Mr.  Hough:    Why? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:  They  are  both  alcoholic  spirits  derived  from 
grain,  and  in  my  opinion  there  is  no  radical  difference  in  prin- 
ciple between  them. 

The  Solicitor-General :  Your  definition  of  WHISKY  is  either  con- 
fined or  extended — I  do  not  care  which  it  is — to  an  article 
made  by  a  process  thus  far  used  in  making  what  is  sold  as 
WHISKY?  Do  I  get  that  correctly? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:  Yes;  I  think  that  is  accurate.  What  I  meant 
by  that  is  this:  That  I  wished  to  describe  WHISKY  as  it  is 
to-day,  not  what  it  may  be.  I  do  not  like  to  bind  myself  to 
any  hard  and  fast  definition.  I  have  been  trying  to  do  this 


lls  not  the  flavor  a  matter  which  every  consumer  wishes  to  decide  for  himself,   without  assistance  from 
Doctor  Wiley  or  anyone  else? 

2Contrast  with  Doctor  Wiley's  testimony.     (Chapter  XII — question  7). 

1 10 


thing  for  seven  or  eight  years,  and  am  still  trying  to  do  it,  and 
I  think  I  am  just  about  to  give  it  up. 
The  Solicitor-General:     YOM  give  me  much  comfort. 

Doctor  Wiley:  Now,  in  fermentation,  an  ester  is  never  pro- 
duced directly  by  fermentation,  is  it? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:  I  should  think  you  get  a  good  deal  of  esters 
during  the  fermentation. 

Doctor  Wiley:  Then  you  have  really  no  positive  chemical 
knowledge  that  those  esters  are  derived  altogether  from  ethyl 
alcohol,  formed  through  ageing? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:  It  comes  from  what  is  called  circumstantial 
evidence  and  not  direct  evidence. 

Dotor  Wiley:     It  seems  to  me   the  circumstantial  evidence   is 

all  the  other  way. 
Mr.  Schidrowitz:    /  do  not  agree. 

Doctor  Wiley:    That  is  a  question  for  the  Solicitor-General. 
The  Solicitor-General:     THAT  BEING  so,  I  WILL  NOT  TRY  TO 

MAKE  UP  MY  MIND/ 

Doctor  Wiley:  I  am  not  speaking  of  what  is  not  WHISKY.  That 
is  no  concern  to  me  at  all,  because  the  definition  of  WHISKY 
includes  only  those  things  which  are  volatile  at  the  tempera- 
tures at  which  the  WHISKY  is  made. 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:     Whose  definition? 

Doctor  Wiley:  You  will  agree  with  me  that  the  substances 
which  are  in  WHISKY  are  only  those  which  are  volatile  at  the 
temperature  at  which  WHISKY  is  made,  and  not  at  higher 
temperatures  ? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:  The  substances  in  any  particular  WHISKY  are 
obviously  those  which  will  volatilize  at  the  temperature  used 
in  the  manufacture  of  that  particular  WHISKY.2 

The  Solicitor-General:  Is  there  any  distinction  *  *  *  be- 
tween adding  more  of  something  that  is  a  simple  constituent 
of  the  article  itself,  and  adding  something  that  previously  is 
not  contained  in  the  article  at  all? 


iThe  Solicitor-General  evidently  had  in  mind — "Who  shall  decide  when  Doccors  disagree?" 
2Se«  Doctor  Wiley's  testimony.    (Chapter  XII — questions  9,  22-26). 

Ill 


Mr.  Schidrowitz:  I  should  think  there  is  a  very  great  dis- 
tinction. 

The  Solicitor-General:  What  do  you  consider  is  the  test  of  the 
line  beyond  which  the  addition  of  pure  alcohol  may  not  go 
without  destroying  the  whisky  character? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:  I  think  there  is  absolutely  no  test  except  that 
of  flavor,  or  taste.1 

The  Solicitor-General:  Which  depends  upon  what  the  public 
recognize  as  the  characteristic  whisky  flavor? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:    Yes. 

Doctor  Wiley:     So  far  as  whisky  is  concerned,  that  has  no  rela- 
tion with  it,  has  it? 
Mr.  Schidrowitz:    /  do  not  agree  with  you. 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:  I  think,  from  my  own  experience  and  our 
general  knowledge,  that  the  addition  of  the  alcohol  disturbs 
the  equilibrium  a  great  deal  less  than  the  addition  of  water. 

Doctor  Wiley:    /  don't  know;  I  should  think  not. 

• 

Doctor  Wiley:     You  think,  then,  as  long  as  you  can  lead  the 

public  to  believe  that  any  compound  of  that  kind  is  Brandy, 

that  that  is  a  correct  test  for  Brandy? 
Mr.  Schidrowitz:    /  do  not  think  that  is  a  compound. 
Doctor  Wiley:     But  it  is  not  Brandy  in  the  common  sense  of 

the  word,  is  it? 

Mr.  Schidrowitz:    /  should  think  it  was. 
Doctor  Wiley :     Is  it  the  Brandy  that  is  known  in  the  region  of 

Cognac  ? 
Mr.  Schidrowitz:     I  should  say  it  was  not  a  Cognac  Brandy,  if 

you  like. 


ISec  Doctor  Wiley's  testimony.     (Chapter  XII— question  69). 

112 


CHAPTER  XVI 

"Leslie's  Weekly"  on  Doctor  Wiley  as  an  "Expert" 

Witness 

(Copied  from  the  issue  of  May  14,  1908.) 

AN   EXPERT  WHO  DOES   NOT  QUALIFY. 

The  man  who  has  been  spending  a  good  deal  of  the  people's  money 
in  making  unscientific  experiment  as  the  chief  chemist  of  the  bureau  of 
chemistry,  at  Washington,  has  been  set  forth  by  a  good  many  newspa- 
pers as  an  expert  in  reference  to  the  effect  of  food  preservatives  on  the 
human  system.  The  notoriety  which  this  Dr.  Wiley  has  achieved  at 
the  public's  expense  has  not  been  to  the  best  advantage  of  the  cause 
of  pure  food  reform.  The  obstreperous  doctor,  having  achieved  no- 
toriety, loves  to  linger  in  the  light  of  publicity.  In  a  recent  trial  at 
Washington  he  was  a  prominent  witness,  but  he  cut  a  sorry  figure. 
During  his  cross-examination  the  "chief  chemist  of  the  bureau  of  chem- 
istry" disclaimed  qualifications  as  a  druggist,  expert  in  drugs,  phy- 
sician, and  even  as  a  food  expert,  although  he  has  claimed  at  various 
hearings  before  congressional  committees  to  be  an  expert  on  practically 
everything  pertaining  to  medicine  and  chemistry. 

On  account  of  Dr.  Wiley's  age  and  the  exalted  governmental  posi- 
tion he  holds,  one  would  expect  that  his  testimony  would  be  given  with 
a  certain  degree  of  dignity.  We  append  some  of  the  answers  that  he 
gave  in  the  case  of  the  "United  States  vs.  Harper."  It  is  hard  to  con- 
ceive anything  more  flippant,  we  might  almost  say  blasphemous,  than 
the  last  two  answers  printed  in  the  cross-examination  herewith  given. 

Dr.  Wiley  cross-examined  by  Mr.  Tucker : 

Mr.  Tucker:    Well,  you  have  written  a  book,  have  you  not,  on — 
what  is  the  title  of  your  book,  doctor  ? 

Dr.  Wiley:  I  cannot  remember  it. 

Mr.  Tucker:    You  cannot  remember  the  title  of  your  book? 

Dr.  Wiley:    No,  sir. 

Mr.  Tucker:     Well,  I  will  read  the  title  to  you — "Foods  and 
their  Adulteration ;  Wiley:  illustrated." 

113 


Dr.  Wiley:    I  think  that  is  it;  yes,  sir. 

Mr.  Tucker:    You  plead  guilty  of  being  the  author  of  that? 

Dr.  Wiley:    Yes,  sir. 

*  *     « 

Mr.  Tucker:    What  is  the  physiological  effect  of  caffeine? 
Dr.  Wiley:    Well,  I  am  not  an  expert  pharmacologist.  • 
Mr.  Tucker:    You  do  not  know? 
Dr.  Wiley:    /  have  an  idea,  but  not  as  an  expert. 

Mr.  Tucker:  Do  I  understand,  then,  that  you  disclaim  any  ex- 
pert knowledge  on  the  subject  of  the  physiological  effect  of 
drugs? 

Dr.  Wiley:    I  do.    /  am  not  a  druggist. 

Mr.  Tucker:  You  do  not  know,  then,  the  physiological  effect  of 
drugs  ? 

Dr.  Wiley :  Yes ;  I  know  some  of  them,  because  I  am  a  physician. 
I  would  not  qualify  as  an  expert  in  drugs. 

Mr.  Tucker:    Oh,  you  are  a  physician? 

Dr.  Wiley:     I  am  trained  as  a  physician;  yes,  sir. 

Mr.  Tucker:     Have  you  ever  practiced  as  a  physician? 

Dr.  Wiley:  I  have  never  practiced,  except  in  hospitals.  I  never 
had  a  private  practice. 

Mr.  Tucker:  What  has  been  the  extent  of  your  hospital  experi- 
ence? 

Dr.  Wiley:  I  will  not  qualify  as  a  practicing  physician;  I  do  not 
propose  to. 

*  #     * 

Mr.  Tucker :  Doctor,  you  have  told  us  that  you  do  not  know  any- 
thing about,  or  know  little  about,  the  physiological  effects  of 
drugs. 

Dr.  Wiley:    I  said  I  would  not  qualify  as  an  expert. 

Mr.  Tucker:    Yes. 

Dr.  Wiley :    /  know  a  good  deal  about  it,  but  not  as  an  expert. 


114 


Mr.  Tucker :    What  is  the  chemical  formula  of  acetanilid  ? 
Dr.  Wiley:    I  do  not  remember  the  chemical  formula.    /  am  not 
a  drug  expert. 

Mr.  Tucker :    What  are  the  elementary  constituents  of  acetanilid  ? 
Dr.  Wiley:     It  consists  of  carbon,  hydrogen,  and  oxygen. 
Mr.  Tucker :    Anything  else  ? 

Dr.  Wiley:  Well,  I  could  not  say.  /  am  not  an  expert  in  that 
line. 

Mr.  Tucker:    You  are  not  an  expert  in  that  line? 
Dr.  Wiley:    No,  sir. 

Mr.  Tucker:  Are  not  some  of  these  elements  that  you  have  just 
named  also  elements  of  food  ? 

Dr.  Wiley :    Not  to  my  knowledge. 
Mr.  Tucker:    None  of  them? 
Dr.  Wiley :    Not  to  my  knowledge. 

Mr.  Tucker :    What  is  the  chemical  formula  of  starch  in  food  ? 
Dr.  Wiley:    Starch  is  composed  of  carbon,  hydrogen,  and  oxygen. 

*     *     * 

Mr.  Tucker:  How  long  ago  was  it,  doctor,  that  you  studied 
nedicine? 

Dr.  Wiley:    It  has  been  thirty  years  ago. 

Mr.  Tucker:    Thirty  years  ago  you  studied  medicine? 

Dr.  Wiley :    I  studied  therapeutics ;  yes,  sir. 

Mr.  Tucker:    How  long  did  you  practice? 

Dr.  Wiley:  /  never  practiced  at  all,  except  during  my  experience 
in  a  hospital  as  a  student  or  as  an  assistant  for  a  short  time. 

Mr.  Tucker:  Then  at  least  part  of  your  knowledge  of  the  physio- 
logical effect  of  caffeine  is  based  upon  what  knowledge  you  ob- 
tained as  a  student  in  a  hospital  thirty  years  ago. 

Dr.  Wiley:    Yes,  sir. 


•    Mr.  Tucker:     Did  you  not  say,  doctor,  that  tannin  is  the  chief, 
principal  ingredient  of  coffee? 

Dr.  Wiley :    I  did  not  say  it  was  the  chief ;  I  said  it  was  one  of  the 
principal  constituents. 

Mr.  Tucker:     Well,  I  only  want  to  know  why  you  make  that 
statement,  why  it  is;  that  is  all. 

Dr.  Wiley :    Well,  I  could  not  say  why  tannin  is  the  chief  con- 
stituent of  coffee.    I  did  not  create  coffee. 

Mr.  Tucker:    No,  doctor;  that  was  not  the  question.    The  ques- 
tion is  why  is  it  so  valuable. 

Dr.  Wiley:    Well,  I  think  you  must  refer  that  to  the  Creator,  too. 

It  is  high  time  that  Dr.  Wiley  should  be  taken  at  his  real,  rather 
than  his  face,  value. 


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